Favourite Leader

Our country has produced a galaxy of thinkers and theoreticians, but there have been very few who have translated theory into practice and converted promise into performance. The life and work of Sardar Patel, whose forty – seventy death anniversary was observed on December 15 lst year show that “things are revolutionized not by creating revolutions on the streets but by achieving practical solutions to the existing problems”. In these days, when virtually India is writing another disappointed story of disorder and disarray in its beleaguered history; it is of paramount importance that the nation’s attention should be invited to Sardar Patel’s concrete and constructive contribution in various areas of Indian polity and administration. Sardar Patelji, the first Home Minister of free India, was a remarkable personality and he is my favourite leader for his innumerable qualities.
There is no one in modern India who has achieved so much in so many directions and in such a short time as Sardar Patel. At the time of his death, the Manchester Guardian wrote that without Patel, Gandhiji’s ideas would have less practical influence and Nehru’s idealism less scope. He was not only the organizer of the fight for freedom but also the arcthitect of the new state when the fight was over. The same man is seldom successful both as rebel and statesman. Sardar Patel was an exception. We learn from his life that it is the constructive work alone that can inject meaning into the veins of history and civilization. The great questions of the day are not settled by speeches and slogans but by sound and solid actions just like did by Sardar Patel in his life.
One of the greatest triumphs in real sense of realism and responsibility of Sardar Patel was integration of over 500 princely states. In respect of this great task, he has often been compared with Chancellor Bismarck who unified Germany in the late nineteenth century. But Sardar Patel’s achievements are far more remarkable than that