Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Sardar Patel

Namaste, 

Too often, Westerners associate India’s independence movement with only Gandhi and Nehru. IMO Gandhi and Nehru emasculated India. In my article The Assertive Indian, I said that Westerners should know about the efforts of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel toward India’s independence.

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose

Now, after reading His Majesty's Opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose and India's Struggle against Empire by Sugata Bose, great-nephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose (and grandson of Sarat Chandra Bose), I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that strong personalities such as Netaji and Sardar Patel were at odds with each other. For one thing, Sardar Patel, as part of Gandhi’s wing, undermined Netaji’s becoming Congress President.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

More personally, and this was new to me, Sardar Patel’s family fought the terms of his older brother Vithalbhai’s will, which allocated a portion of his fortune to Netaji “for the political uplift of India and preferably for publicity work on behalf of India’s cause in other countries.” Vithalbahai Patel and Netaji met as they were convalescing in a sanatorium in Europe.

This is not to disparage the efforts of both Netaji and Sardar Patel toward achieving India's independence.  Both men contributed strongly to India's independence in their own ways.

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INDIA'S BISMARCK: Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

Cover of INDIA'S BISMARCK: Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

I received an email from Indus Source, a book publisher in Mumbai, alerting me to the publication of INDIA'S BISMARCK: Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, in response to my article The Assertive Indian.

INDIA'S BISMARCK covers Sardar Patel's career as a satyagrahi, creator of the Indian Administration Service (IAS), and Congress Party boss. Given their strong wills, it should not be surprising that Sardar Patel clashed with Netaji when Netaji presided over Congress, my article on The Assertive Indian notwithstanding.

The most important part of INDIA'S BISMARCK covers Sardar Patel's leadership as Unifier of India. He used Indian troops to compel accession of Junagadh (in Gujarat) and Hyderabad. His lasting achievement was the accession of 560 princely states to form the geographic whole that is India.

Westerners know about Gandhi and Nehru, but don't know about Sardar Patel. While the widely read Freedom at Midnight discusses Sardar Patel, his leadership as Unifier of India gets short shrift and ultimately, he is treated almost as an afterthought in the epilogue (Sardar Patel died in 1950, only three years after Independence). Even many Indians might not be familiar with Sardar Patel's accomplishments. I recommend INDIA'S BISMARCK to these reader audiences.

You may purchase INDIA'S BISMARCK on Amazon.com.

The Assertive Indian

with apologies to Amartya Sen and his book The Argumentative Indian

Today is the 60th anniversary of India's independence and I thought that I would share some thoughts about leaders for independence.

Many of our friends think that Gandhi was a saint; in fact, one person opined that if he had lived in Jesus's time and stories about him had accumulated over the years, as with Jesus, that he would be regarded with the same reverence as Jesus. However, Gandhi, and those who promote his legacy, especially in the West, have created the unfortunate impression that India and Indians must be docile. Whenever Indians act assertively, it's met with shock and then condemnation.

As for Nehru, he created a travesty of major proportions when he threw the fate of Kashmir to the UN. The Maharaja of Kashmir was offered the same terms of accession as given to rulers of other princely states. He dithered, until marauding Pathans from Pakistan compelled him to throw his lot with India. And for that, many Pakistanis refer to him as a "Hindu despot"! An acquaintance from India mentioned that he had a friend in the Indian army who, along with his fellow soldiers, were stunned when Nehru commanded the army to stand down, rather than fight in Kashmir. A former army officer told us that India could take Kashmir in 7 days if there were the political will.

Most of our non-Indian friends know about Gandhi and Nehru, but have never heard of assertive Indians like Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Sardar Patel. Could Netaji's volunteer army marching from Burma have had more to do with Indian independence than Gandhi's satyagraha? A war-weary Britain was unwilling to fight in one of its possessions following WWII. As for Sardar Patel, he did more for integration of India than anyone.

It's time to make Netaji and Sardar Patel better known in the West - it will change perception of India and Indians.