Emergence of sardar patel?

Question

please help me its very urgent

Answer 1

From "Manas:  History and Politics":

"Sardar [Vallabhbhai] Patel was one of Mohandas Gandhi’s closest associates, and he organized and led several satyagrahas during India’s struggle for freedom from British rule. When India achieved independence in 1947, [Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Prime Minister of independent India and] Sardar Patel...became Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, and he presided over the most difficult task facing the nascent nation-state: The integration of over 550 princely states into the Indian Union.

...Patel was born in Nadiad in present-day Gujarat in 1875.  He completed his schooling in the local area and subsequently, in his 30s, he went to Britain; like many of his generation of political leaders, he qualified as a barrister.  Patel returned to India around the same time as Gandhi returned to India from South Africa, on the eve of World War I, and the two met shortly thereafter.  Patel joined Gandhi in representing the weavers in the dispute with millowners in Ahmedabad in 1918, and he played a pivotal role in helping to redress the grievances of peasants in Kheda district.  'I will say', wrote Gandhi in his autobiography, 'that without the help of Vallabhbhai Patel, we should not have won the campaign.  He had a splendid [law] practice, he had his municipal work to do, but he renounced it all and threw himself in the campaign.'  Patel was charged in 1928 with leading the difficult satyagraha at Bardoli, where again the colonial state was attempting to exact heavy taxes from an impoverished peasantry, and he acquitted himself brilliantly.  In 1931, Patel was elected President of the Indian National Congress.  Gandhi reposed great confidence in him through the three decades of their friendship.

...The prevailing representations of Patel dwell almost exclusively on his political achievements, and it is not surprising that three generations of Indian school children have known Patel as the 'Iron Man of India'. Everyone recognized his...determination and pragmatism, and nowhere was this more visibly on display when, as Home Minister and Minister of States, he took decisive action to consolidate the Indian Union and authorized police action to merge Hyderabad into India....

...[Additionally] Patel contributed very substantially to the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly, and it has not always been recognized that the protection and privileges guaranteed to minorities in the Indian Constitution under Articles 29 and 30 owe much to the vigilance of Patel. Indeed, Patel, unlike some other Hindu leaders, was insistent that the right to proselytize should be recognized as part of the right to freedom of religious worship. With respect to the position of Muslims, Sikhs, and other religious communities in India, Patel wrote that 'it is up to the majority community, by its generosity, to create a sense of confidence in the minorities, and so also it will be the duty of the minority communities to forge the past . . .'

...His criticism of the use of violence to resolve political disputes bears a sharp contrast with the use of violence by religious extremists in India in recent years.  In 1949, an idol of Lord Ram was surreptitiously installed in the precincts of the Babri Masjid; writing to Govind Vallabh Pant, then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, on 9 January 1950, Patel encouraged him to prosecute violators of the law and perpetrators of violence. 'I feel that the issue is one which should be resolved amicably,' wrote Patel, 'in a spirit of mutual toleration and goodwill between the two communities. . . . such matters can only be resolved peacefully if we take the willing consent of the Muslim community with us. There can be no question of resolving such disputes by force.' ...Patel desired nothing more than that the Indian nation-state should persevere and flourish....Patel is still remembered as one of principal architects of Indian independence and one of the shapers of modern India...."

Sardar Patel died of cardiac arrest on December 15, 1950. For his services to the nation he was conferred with Bharat Ratna in 1991.

[Addendum:  Throughout his political career, Patel concentrated on party organization, often displaying strength and decisiveness. He was a staunch Hindu and, unlike Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, he tended to be a conservative in politics.  During his lifetime, particularly at the time of partition, and after his death, he was criticized by some who argued that he tolerated the neglect and mistreatment of Muslims.  It is said that he did not do enough in his capacity as Home Minister to ensure the safety of the Muslims; however, Patel’s own writings, including his correspondence, lend little if any support to the representation of him as a Hindu communalist.  Few doubt that his untiring efforts towards the unity of the country brought success and that the success was not achieved at the expense of the Muslims.]

For additional biographical and political information, please see:

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/His...

and

http://www.iloveindia.com/indian-heroes/...

and

http://www.sardarpatelaward.com/aboutsar...