It is difficult for me to write about the Sardar. Of the leading men with whom I have come into close contact, he has been nearest to me. I admire his extraordinary gifts. I cherish a deep affection for this man whom most men fear. I first came into close contact with Sardar Vallabhbhai in 1928. He was then leading the Bardoli Satyagraha. I was then an independent member of the Bombay legislative council. Sir Leslie Wilson, then governor, told me that there was no official high-handedness at Bardoli and that the propaganda was false. I met the Sardar of Bardoli – now of India – in active service. His leadership drew me to him. He had forged a technique of mass resistance which reconciled me to Gandhiji’s policies which I had so far considered impractical.
Then came the elections of 1936. I then saw him arranging elections, fixing up candidates, setting up ministries, controlling them, giving to diverse centrifugal forces a harmonious direction. I saw him arranging, organising, directing men and forces all over the country; breaking through hostile combinations; aligning new forces. I was with him often, almost daily when he was in Bombay, watching with admiring awe the working of his mind. The Congress was a seething mass of ambitions throughout the country. The Sardar’s genius alone brought order and discipline. Often, at night. I saw and heard him answering long-distance calls from all over India with short. decisive suggestions, which were devastating in their effectiveness.
In 1940, we were together in Yeravada Jail. I had the occasion to see his human side. He laughed, he cracked jokes, he told droll stories. He became our housekeeper, prepared tea for us, looked after our food and other arrangements. For hours we walked by ourselves. He told me stories of his young days. of his early association with Gandhiji, of the missing links in many affairs to which I was only a partial witness.
The Sardar is the executive arm of the Gandhian fabric of power. This fabric of power this empire is not the Congress; it is wider and yet the main support of the institution: for in the Congress there are indeed many who are not an integral part of this empire. All over the world there are Gandhians. They look to Gandhiji for inspiration and guidance. By far the greatest section of this fabric receive their direction from Vallabhbhai. Gandhiji plans, inspires, guides, sets the standard and the goal: Vallabhbhai sees to it that things are done.
The Sardar has abjured all personal life. He has no individual ambition or attachment, apart from the success of Gandhian policies. He has no opinion except Gandhiji’s, once his views are overruled. He has no other standards except those prescribed by Gandhiji. He has been to Gandhiji what Shri Krishna wants Arjun to be– nimittamatram, an instrument. This surrender to Gandhiji is partly responsible for the general failure to appreciate the great work that the Sardar is doing. He never claims credit for himself; he does not want to be known except as an instrument of Gandhiji.
The Sardar is a great player on the chessboard of Indian practical politics. The chessboard extends to the whole of India, to its every sphere. His eye is on every pawn, friendly and hostile. He watches the British in India with unweary eyes. He calculates moves large and small. In Congress groups legislatures, in public life, in praja mandals, in ministries, in the central government. He can make people talk by his silence.
If the elections are on, all over India, each province, each leader, each important member has his attention. When ministries were functioning, every ministry, the internal relations of its members, their attitude towards the British were under his watchful care in Congress committees, where rival ambitions often mar team work, he watches ambitious men with a hundred eyes and regulates them. And through the tangled web of moves and counter-moves his adept finger forms combinations with but one aid – the generation of India’s strength and the end of foreign rule
KM Munshi was a novelist, freedom fighter, former Union minister of India, and one of the founding members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. A larger version of this article appeared in the Hindustan Times on October 31, 1945 on the occasion of Patel’s 70th birthday
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