Vallabhbhai Patel (31 October 1875 – 15 December 1950), popularly known as Sardar Patel, was the first Deputy Prime Minister of India. He was an Indian barrister and statesman, a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and a founding father of the Republic of India who played a leading role in the country's struggle for independence and guided its integration into a united, independent nation.^[1] In India and elsewhere, he was often called Sardar, Chief in Hindi, Urdu, and Persian. He acted as de facto Supreme Commander-in-chief of Indian army during the political integration of India and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947.

Patel was born and raised in the countryside of Gujarat.^[2] He was a successful lawyer. He subsequently organised peasants from Kheda, Borsad, and Bardoli in Gujarat in non-violent civil disobedience against the British Raj, becoming one of the most influential leaders in Gujarat. He rose to the leadership of the Indian National Congress, organising the party for elections in 1934 and 1937 while promoting the Quit India Movement.

As the first Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of India, Patel organised relief efforts for refugees fleeing from Punjab and Delhi and worked to restore peace. He led the task of forging a united India, successfully integrating into the newly independent nation those British colonial provinces that had been "allocated" to India. Besides those provinces that had been under direct British rule, approximately 565 self-governing princely stateshad been released from British suzerainty by the Indian Independence Act of 1947. Threatening military force, Patel persuaded almost every princely state to accede to India. His commitment to national integration in the newly independent country was total and uncompromising, earning him the sobriquet "Iron Man of India".^[3] He is also remembered as the "patron saint of India's civil servants" for having established the modern all-India servicessystem. He is also called the "Unifier of India".^[4]

In 2014, the Government of India introduced a commemoration of Patel, held annually on his birthday, 31 October, and known as Rashtriya Ekta Diwas (National Unity Day).

Early life[edit]

Painting of Sardar Vallabhai Patel as deputy prime minister that appeared in the 1948 issue of Chandamamamagazine

Patel's date of birth was never officially recorded; Patel entered it as 31 October on his matriculation examination papers.^[5] He belonged to the Leuva Patel Patidar community of Central Gujarat, although the Leuva Patels and Kadava Patels have also claimed him as one of their own.^[6]

Patel travelled to attend schools in Nadiad, Petlad, and Borsad, living self-sufficiently with other boys. He reputedly cultivated a stoic character. A popular anecdote recounts that he lanced his own painful boil without hesitation, even as the barber charged with doing it trembled.^[7] When Patel passed his matriculation at the relatively late age of 22, he was generally regarded by his elders as an unambitious man destined for a commonplace job. Patel himself, though, harboured a plan to study to become a lawyer, work and save funds, travel to England, and become a barrister.^[8] Patel spent years away from his family, studying on his own with books borrowed from other lawyers, passing his examinations within two years. Fetching his wife Jhaverba from her parents' home, Patel set up his household in Godhra and was called to the bar. During the many years it took him to save money, Patel – now an advocate – earned a reputation as a fierce and skilled lawyer. The couple had a daughter, Maniben, in 1904 and a son, Dahyabhai, in 1906. Patel also cared for a friend suffering from the Bubonic plague when it swept across Gujarat. When Patel himself came down with the disease, he immediately sent his family to safety, left his home, and moved into an isolated house in Nadiad (by other accounts, Patel spent this time in a dilapidated temple); there, he recovered slowly.^[9]

Patel practised law in Godhra, Borsad, and Anand while taking on the financial burdens of his homestead in Karamsad. Patel was the first chairman and founder of "Edward Memorial High School" Borsad, today known as Jhaverbhai Dajibhai Patel High School. When he had saved enough for his trip to England and applied for a pass and a ticket, they were addressed to "V. J. Patel," at the home of his elder brother Vithalbhai, who had the same initials as Vallabhai. Having once nurtured a similar hope to study in England, Vithalbhai remonstrated his younger brother, saying that it would be disreputable for an older brother to follow his younger brother. In keeping with concerns for his family's honour, Patel allowed Vithalbhai to go in his place.^[10]

In 1909 Patel's wife Jhaverba was hospitalised in Bombay (now Mumbai) to undergo major surgery for cancer. Her health suddenly worsened and, despite successful emergency surgery, she died in the hospital. Patel was given a note informing him of his wife's demise as he was cross-examining a witness in court. According to witnesses, Patel read the note, pocketed it, and continued his cross-examination and won the case. He broke the news to others only after the proceedings had ended.^[11] Patel decided against marrying again. He raised his children with the help of his family and sent them to English-language schools in Mumbai. At the age of 36 he journeyed to England and enrolled at the Middle Temple Inn in London. Completing a 36-month course in 30 months, Patel finished at the top of his class despite having had no previous college background.^[12]

Returning to India, Patel settled in Ahmedabad and became one of the city's most successful barristers. Wearing European-style clothes and sporting urbane mannerisms, he became a skilled bridge player. Patel nurtured ambitions to expand his practice and accumulate great wealth and to provide his children with a modern education. He had made a pact with his brother Vithalbhai to support his entry into politics in the Bombay Presidency, while Patel remained in Ahmedabad to provide for the family.^[13]^[14]

Fight for self-rule[edit]

At the urging of his friends, Patel ran in the election for the post of sanitation commissioner of Ahmedabad in 1917 and won. While often clashing with British officials on civic issues, he did not show any interest in politics. Upon hearing of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, he joked to the lawyer and political activist, Ganesh Vasudev Mavlankar, that "Gandhi would ask you if you know how to shift pebbles from wheat. And that is supposed to bring independence." A subsequent meeting with Gandhi, in October 1917 fundamentally changed Patel and led him to join the Indian independence struggle.^[15]

In September 1917, Patel had already a speech in Borsad, encouraging Indians nationwide to sign Gandhi's petition demanding Swaraj – self-rule – from Britain. A month later, he met Gandhi for the first time at the Gujarat Political Conference in Godhra. On Gandhi's encouragement, Patel became the secretary of the Gujarat Sabha, a public body that would become the Gujarati arm of the Indian National Congress. Patel now energetically fought against veth – the forced servitude of Indians to Europeans – and organised relief efforts in the wake of plague and famine in Kheda.^[16] The Kheda peasants' plea for exemption from taxation had been turned down by British authorities. Gandhi endorsed waging a struggle there, but could not lead it himself due to his activities in Champaran. When Gandhi asked for a Gujarati activist to devote himself completely to the assignment, Patel volunteered, much to Gandhi's delight.^[17] Though his decision was made on the spot, Patel later said that his desire and commitment came after intense personal contemplation, as he realised he would have to abandon his career and material ambitions.^[18]

Satyagraha in Gujarat[edit]

Supported by Congress volunteers Narhari Parikh, Mohanlal Pandya, and Abbas Tyabji, Vallabhbhai Patel began a village-by-village tour in the Kheda district, documenting grievances and asking villagers for their support for a statewide revolt by refusing to pay taxes. Patel emphasised the potential hardships and the need for complete unity and non-violence in the face of provocation. He received an enthusiastic response from virtually every village.^[19]When the revolt was launched and tax revenue withheld, the government sent police and intimidation squads to seize property, including confiscating barn animals and whole farms. Patel organised a network of volunteers to work with individual villages, helping them hide valuables and protect themselves against raids. Thousands of activists and farmers were arrested, but Patel was not. The revolt evoked sympathy and admiration across India, including among pro-British Indian politicians. The government agreed to negotiate with Patel and decided to suspend the payment of taxes for a year, even scaling back the rate. Patel emerged as a hero to Gujaratis.^[20] In 1920 he was elected president of the newly formed Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee; he would serve as its president until 1945.^{[citation needed]}

Patel supported Gandhi's non-cooperation Movement and toured the state to recruit more than 300,000 members and raise over Rs. 1.5 million in funds.^[21] Helping organise bonfires in Ahmedabad in which British goods were burned, Patel threw in all his English-style clothes. Along with his daughter Mani and son Dahya, he switched completely to wearing khadi, the locally produced cotton clothing. Patel also supported Gandhi's controversial suspension of resistance in the wake of the Chauri Chaura incident. In Gujarat he worked extensively in the following years against alcoholism, untouchability, and caste discrimination, as well as for the empowerment of women. In the Congress, he was a resolute supporter of Gandhi against his Swarajist critics. Patel was elected Ahmedabad's municipal president in 1922, 1924, and 1927; during his terms, he oversaw improvements in infrastructure: the supply of electricity was increased, and drainage and sanitation systems were extended throughout the city. The school system underwent major reforms. He fought for the recognition and payment of teachers employed in schools established by nationalists (independent of British control) and even took on sensitive Hindu–Muslim issues.^[22] Patel personally led relief efforts in the aftermath of the torrential rainfall of 1927 that caused major floods in the city and in the Kheda district, and great destruction of life and property. He established refugee centres across the district, mobilized volunteers, and arranged for supplies of food, medicines, and clothing, as well as emergency funds from the government and the public.^[23]

When Gandhi was in prison, Patel was asked by Members of Congress to lead the satyagraha in Nagpur in 1923 against a law banning the raising of the Indian flag. He organised thousands of volunteers from all over the country to take part in processions of people violating the law. Patel negotiated a settlement obtaining the release of all prisoners and allowing nationalists to hoist the flag in public. Later that year, Patel and his allies uncovered evidence suggesting that the police were in league with local dacoits (Devar Baba) in the Borsad taluka even as the government prepared to levy a major tax for fighting dacoits in the area. More than 6,000 villagers assembled to hear Patel speak in support of proposed agitation against the tax, which was deemed immoral and unnecessary. He organised hundreds of Congressmen, sent instructions, and received information from across the district. Every village in the taluka resisted payment of the tax and prevented the seizure of property and land. After a protracted struggle, the government withdrew the tax. Historians believe that one of Patel's key achievements was the building of cohesion and trust amongst the different castes and communities, which had been divided along socio-economic lines.^[24]

In April 1928 Patel returned to the independence struggle from his municipal duties in Ahmedabad when Bardoli suffered from a serious double predicament of a famine and a steep tax hike. The revenue hike was steeper than it had been in Kheda even though the famine covered a large portion of Gujarat. After cross-examining and talking to village representatives, emphasising the potential hardship and need for non-violence and cohesion, Patel initiated the struggle with a complete denial of taxes.^[25] Patel organised volunteers, camps, and an information network across affected areas. The revenue refusal was stronger than in Kheda, and many sympathy satyagrahas were undertaken across Gujarat. Despite arrests and seizures of property and land, the struggle intensified. The situation came to a head in August, when, through sympathetic intermediaries, he negotiated a settlement that included repealing the tax hike, reinstating village officials who had resigned in protest, and returning seized property and land. It was women of bardoli during the struggle and after the victory in Bardoli that Patel was increasingly addressed by his colleagues and followers as Sardar.^[26]

Maulana Azad, Jamnalal Bajaj, Patel (third from left, in the foreground), Subhash Chandra Bose and other Congressmen at Wardha

As Gandhi embarked on the Dandi Salt March, Patel was arrested in the village of Ras and was put on trial without witnesses, with no lawyer or journalists allowed to attend. Patel's arrest and Gandhi's subsequent arrest caused the Salt Satyagraha to greatly intensify in Gujarat – districts across Gujarat launched an anti-tax rebellion until and unless Patel and Gandhi were released.^[27] Once released, Patel served as interim Congress president, but was re-arrested while leading a procession in Mumbai. After the signing of the Gandhi–Irwin Pact, Patel was elected president of Congress for its 1931 session in Karachi – here the Congress ratified the pact and committed itself to the defence of fundamental rights and civil liberties. It advocated the establishment of a secular nation with a minimum wage and the abolition of untouchability and serfdom. Patel used his position as Congress president to organise the return of confiscated land to farmers in Gujarat.^[28] Upon the failure of the Round Table Conference in London, Gandhi and Patel were arrested in January 1932 when the struggle re-opened, and imprisoned in the Yeravda Central Jail. During this term of imprisonment, Patel and Gandhi grew close to each other, and the two developed a close bond of affection, trust, and frankness. Their mutual relationship could be described as that of an elder brother (Gandhi) and his younger brother (Patel). Despite having arguments with Gandhi, Patel respected his instincts and leadership. In prison, the two discussed national and social issues, read Hindu epics, and cracked jokes. Gandhi taught Patel Sanskrit. Gandhi's secretary, Mahadev Desai, kept detailed records of conversations between Gandhi and Patel.^[29] When Gandhi embarked on a fast-unto-death protesting the separate electorates allocated for untouchables, Patel looked after Gandhi closely and himself refrained from partaking of food.^[30] Patel was later moved to a jail in Nasik, and refused a British offer for a brief release to attend the cremation of his brother Vithalbhai, who had died in 1934. He was finally released in July of the same year.^{[citation needed]}

Patel's position at the highest level in the Congress was largely connected with his role from 1934 onwards (when the Congress abandoned its boycott of elections) in the party organisation. Based at an apartment in Mumbai, he became the Congress's main fundraiser and chairman of its Central Parliamentary Board, playing the leading role in selecting and financing candidates for the 1934 elections to the Central Legislative Assembly in New Delhi and for the provincial elections of 1936.^[31] In addition to collecting funds and selecting candidates, he also determined the Congress's stance on issues and opponents.^[32] Not contesting a seat for himself, Patel nevertheless guided Congressmen elected in the provinces and at the national level. In 1935 Patel underwent surgery for haemorrhoids, yet continued to direct efforts against the plague in Bardoli and again when a drought struck Gujarat in 1939. Patel guided the Congress ministries that had won power across India with the aim of preserving party discipline – Patel feared that the British would take advantage of opportunities to create conflict among elected Congressmen, and he did not want the party to be distracted from the goal of complete independence.^[33] Patel clashed with Nehru, opposing declarations of the adoption of socialism at the 1936 Congress session, which he believed was a diversion from the main goal of achieving independence. In 1938 Patel organised rank and file opposition to the attempts of then-Congress president Subhas Chandra Bose to move away from Gandhi's principles of non-violent resistance. Patel saw Bose as wanting more power over the party. He led senior Congress leaders in a protest that resulted in Bose's resignation. But criticism arose from Bose's supporters, socialists, and other Congressmen that Patel himself was acting in an authoritarian manner in his defence of Gandhi's authority.^{[citation needed]}

Quit India[edit]

On the outbreak of World War II, Patel supported Nehru's decision to withdraw the Congress from central and provincial legislatures, contrary to Gandhi's advice, as well as an initiative by senior leader Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari to offer Congress's full support to Britain if it promised Indian independence at the end of the war and installed a democratic government right away. Gandhi had refused to support Britain on the grounds of his moral opposition to war, while Subhash Chandra Bose was in militant opposition to the British. The British rejected Rajagopalachari's initiative, and Patel embraced Gandhi's leadership again.^[34] He participated in Gandhi's call for individual disobedience, and was arrested in 1940 and imprisoned for nine months. He also opposed the proposals of the Cripps' mission in 1942. Patel lost more than twenty pounds during his period in jail.^{[citation needed]}

Azad, Patel, and Gandhi at an AICC meeting in Bombay, 1940

While Nehru, Rajagopalachari, and Maulana Azad initially criticised Gandhi's proposal for an all-out campaign of civil disobedience to force the British to quit India, Patel was its most fervent supporter. Arguing that the British would retreat from India as they had from Singapore and Burma, Patel urged that the campaign start without any delay.^[35] Though feeling that the British would not leave immediately, Patel favoured an all-out rebellion that would galvanise the Indian people, who had been divided in their response to the war, In Patel's view, such a rebellion would force the British to concede that continuation of colonial rule had no support in India, and thus speed the transfer of power to Indians.^[36] Believing strongly in the need for revolt, Patel stated his intention to resign from the Congress if the revolt were not approved.^[37] Gandhi strongly pressured the All India Congress Committee to approve an all-out campaign of civil disobedience, and the AICC approved the campaign on 7 August 1942. Though Patel's health had suffered during his stint in jail, he gave emotional speeches to large crowds across India,^[38] asking them to refuse to pay taxes and to participate in civil disobedience, mass protests, and a shutdown of all civil services. He raised funds and prepared a second tier of command as a precaution against the arrest of national leaders.^[39] Patel made a climactic speech to more than 100,000 people gathered at Gowalia Tank in Bombay (Mumbai) on 7 August:

The Governor of Burma boasts in London that they left Burma only after reducing everything to dust. So you promise the same thing to India? ... You refer in your radio broadcasts and newspapers to the government established in Burma by Japan as a puppet government? What sort of government do you have in Delhi now?...When France fell before the Nazi onslaught, in the midst of total war, Mr. Churchill offered union with England to the French. That was indeed a stroke of inspired statesmanship. But when it comes to India? Oh no! Constitutional changes in the midst of a war? Absolutely unthinkable ... The objective this time is to free India before the Japanese can come and be ready to fight them if they come. They will round up the leaders, round up all. Then it will be the duty of every Indian to put forth his utmost effort—within non-violence. No source is to be left untapped; no weapon untried. This is going to be the opportunity of a lifetime.^[40]

Historians believe that Patel's speech was instrumental in electrifying nationalists, who up to then had been skeptical of the proposed rebellion. Patel's organising work in this period is credited by historians with ensuring the success of the rebellion across India.^[41] Patel was arrested on 9 August and was imprisoned with the entire Congress Working Committee from 1942 to 1945 at the fort in Ahmednagar. Here he spun cloth, played bridge, read a large number of books, took long walks, and practised gardening. He also provided emotional support to his colleagues while awaiting news and developments from the outside.^[42] Patel was deeply pained at the news of the deaths of Mahadev Desai and Kasturba Gandhi later that year.^[43] But Patel wrote in a letter to his daughter that he and his colleagues were experiencing "fullest peace" for having done "their duty".^[44] Even though other political parties had opposed the struggle and the British had employed ruthless means of suppression, the Quit India movement was "by far the most serious rebellion since that of 1857", as the viceroy cabled to Winston Churchill. More than 100,000 people were arrested and many were killed in violent struggles with the police. Strikes, protests, and other revolutionary activities had broken out across India.^[45]When Patel was released on 15 June 1945, he realised that the British were preparing proposals to transfer power to India.^{[citation needed]}

Integration after Independence and role of Gandhi[edit]

In the 1946 election for the Congress presidency, the nominations were to be made by 15 state/regional Congress committees. Despite Gandhi's well-known preference for Nehru as Congress president, not a single Congress committee nominated Nehru's name. 12 out of 15 Congress committees nominated Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel. The remaining three Congress committees did not nominate any body's name. The majority was in favour of Sardar Patel. Mahatma Gandhi told Acharya J B kriplani to get some proposers for Nehru from the Congress Working Committee (CWC) members despite knowing fully well that only Pradesh Congress Committees were authorized to nominate the president. In deference to Gandhi's wish, Kripalani convinced a few CWC members to propose Nehru's name for party president. Later, Mahatma Gandhi tried to make Nehru understand the reality. He conveyed to Nehru that no PCC has nominated his name and that only a few CWC members have nominated him but Nehru was defiant and made it clear that he will not play second fiddle to any body. Thus, Patel stepped down in favour of Nehru at the request of Gandhi.^[46] The election's importance stemmed from the fact that the elected president would lead independent India's first government. As the first Home Minister, Patel played a key role in the integration of the princely states into the Indian federation.

In the elections, the Congress won a large majority of the elected seats, dominating the Hindu electorate. But the Muslim League led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah won a large majority of Muslim electorate seats. The League had resolved in 1940 to demand Pakistan – an independent state for Muslims – and was a fierce critic of the Congress. The Congress formed governments in all provinces save Sindh, Punjab, and Bengal, where it entered into coalitions with other parties.

Cabinet mission and partition[edit]

When the British mission proposed two plans for transfer of power, there was considerable opposition within the Congress to both. The plan of 16 May 1946 proposed a loose federation with extensive provincial autonomy, and the "grouping" of provinces based on religious-majority. The plan of 16 May 1946 proposed the partition of India on religious lines, with over 565 princely states free to choose between independence or accession to either dominion. The League approved both plans while the Congress flatly rejected the proposal of 16 May. Gandhi criticised the 16 May proposal as being inherently divisive, but Patel, realising that rejecting the proposal would mean that only the League would be invited to form a government, lobbied the Congress Working Committee hard to give its assent to the 16 May proposal. Patel engaged the British envoys Sir Stafford Cripps and Lord Pethick-Lawrence and obtained an assurance that the "grouping" clause would not be given practical force, Patel converted Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, and Rajagopalachari to accept the plan. When the League retracted its approval of the 16 May plan, the viceroy Lord Wavell invited the Congress to form the government. Under Nehru, who was styled the "Vice President of the Viceroy's Executive Council", Patel took charge of the departments of home affairs and information and broadcasting. He moved into a government house on Aurangzeb Road in Delhi, which would be his home until his death in 1950.^[47]

Vallabhbhai Patel was one of the first Congress leaders to accept the partition of India as a solution to the rising Muslim separatist movement led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He had been outraged by Jinnah's Direct Action campaign, which had provoked communal violence across India, and by the viceroy's vetoes of his home department's plans to stop the violence on the grounds of constitutionality. Patel severely criticised the viceroy's induction of League ministers into the government, and the revalidation of the grouping scheme by the British without Congress's approval. Although further outraged at the League's boycott of the assembly and non-acceptance of the plan of 16 May despite entering government, he was also aware that Jinnah did enjoy popular support amongst Muslims, and that an open conflict between him and the nationalists could degenerate into a Hindu-Muslim civil war of disastrous consequences. The continuation of a divided and weak central government would, in Patel's mind, result in the wider fragmentation of India by encouraging more than 600 princely states towards independence.^[48] In December 1946 and January 1947, Patel worked with civil servant V. P. Menon on the latter's suggestion for a separate dominion of Pakistan created out of Muslim-majority provinces. Communal violence in Bengal and Punjab in January and March 1947 further convinced Patel of the soundness of partition. Patel, a fierce critic of Jinnah's demand that the Hindu-majority areas of Punjab and Bengal be included in a Muslim state, obtained the partition of those provinces, thus blocking any possibility of their inclusion in Pakistan. Patel's decisiveness on the partition of Punjab and Bengal had won him many supporters and admirers amongst the Indian public, which had tired of the League's tactics, but he was criticised by Gandhi, Nehru, secular Muslims, and socialists for a perceived eagerness to do so. When Lord Louis Mountbatten formally proposed the plan on 3 June 1947, Patel gave his approval and lobbied Nehru and other Congress leaders to accept the proposal. Knowing Gandhi's deep anguish regarding proposals of partition, Patel engaged him in frank discussion in private meetings over what he saw as the practical unworkability of any Congress–League coalition, the rising violence, and the threat of civil war. At the All India Congress Committee meeting called to vote on the proposal, Patel said:

I fully appreciate the fears of our brothers from [the Muslim-majority areas]. Nobody likes the division of India and my heart is heavy. But the choice is between one division and many divisions. We must face facts. We cannot give way to emotionalism and sentimentality. The Working Committee has not acted out of fear. But I am afraid of one thing, that all our toil and hard work of these many years might go waste or prove unfruitful. My nine months in office has completely disillusioned me regarding the supposed merits of the Cabinet Mission Plan. Except for a few honourable exceptions, Muslim officials from the top down to the chaprasis (peons or servants) are working for the League. The communal veto given to the League in the Mission Plan would have blocked India's progress at every stage. Whether we like it or not, de facto Pakistan already exists in the Punjab and Bengal. Under the circumstances I would prefer a de jure Pakistan, which may make the League more responsible. Freedom is coming. We have 75 to 80 percent of India, which we can make strong with our own genius. The League can develop the rest of the country.^[49]

After Gandhi rejected and Congress approved – the plan, Patel represented India on the Partition Council,^[50]^[51] where he oversaw the division of public assets, and selected the Indian council of ministers with Nehru.^[52] However, neither Patel nor any other Indian leader had foreseen the intense violence and population transfer that would take place with partition. Patel took the lead in organising relief and emergency supplies, establishing refugee camps, and visiting the border areas with Pakistani leaders to encourage peace. Despite these efforts, the death toll is estimated at between 500,000 and 1 million people.^[53] The estimated number of refugees in both countries exceeds 15 million.^[54] Understanding that Delhi and Punjab policemen, accused of organising attacks on Muslims, were personally affected by the tragedies of partition, Patel called out the Indian Army with South Indian regiments to restore order, imposing strict curfews and shoot-at-sight orders. Visiting the Nizamuddin Auliya Dargah area in Delhi, where thousands of Delhi Muslims feared attacks, he prayed at the shrine, visited the people, and reinforced the presence of police. He suppressed from the press reports of atrocities in Pakistan against Hindus and Sikhs to prevent retaliatory violence. Establishing the Delhi Emergency Committee to restore order and organising relief efforts for refugees in the capital, Patel publicly warned officials against partiality and neglect. When reports reached Patel that large groups of Sikhs were preparing to attack Muslim convoys heading for Pakistan, Patel hurried to Amritsar and met Sikh and Hindu leaders. Arguing that attacking helpless people was cowardly and dishonourable, Patel emphasised that Sikh actions would result in further attacks against Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan. He assured the community leaders that if they worked to establish peace and order and guarantee the safety of Muslims, the Indian government would react forcefully to any failures of Pakistan to do the same. Additionally, Patel addressed a massive crowd of approximately 200,000 refugees who had surrounded his car after the meetings:

Here, in this same city, the blood of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims mingled in the bloodbath of Jallianwala Bagh. I am grieved to think that things have come to such a pass that no Muslim can go about in Amritsar and no Hindu or Sikh can even think of living in Lahore. The butchery of innocent and defenceless men, women and children does not behove brave men ... I am quite certain that India's interest lies in getting all her men and women across the border and sending out all Muslims from East Punjab. I have come to you with a specific appeal. Pledge the safety of Muslim refugees crossing the city. Any obstacles or hindrances will only worsen the plight of our refugees who are already performing prodigious feats of endurance. If we have to fight, we must fight clean. Such a fight must await an appropriate time and conditions and you must be watchful in choosing your ground. To fight against the refugees is no fight at all. No laws of humanity or war among honourable men permit the murder of people who have sought shelter and protection. Let there be truce for three months in which both sides can exchange their refugees. This sort of truce is permitted even by laws of war. Let us take the initiative in breaking this vicious circle of attacks and counter-attacks. Hold your hands for a week and see what happens. Make way for the refugees with your own force of volunteers and let them deliver the refugees safely at our frontier.^[55]

Following his dialogue with community leaders and his speech, no further attacks occurred against Muslim refugees, and a wider peace and order was soon re-established over the entire area. However, Patel was criticised by Nehru, secular Muslims, and Gandhi over his alleged wish to see Muslims from other parts of India depart. While Patel vehemently denied such allegations, the acrimony with Maulana Azad and other secular Muslim leaders increased when Patel refused to dismiss Delhi's Sikh police commissioner, who was accused of discrimination. Hindu and Sikh leaders also accused Patel and other leaders of not taking Pakistan sufficiently to task over the attacks on their communities there, and Muslim leaders further criticised him for allegedly neglecting the needs of Muslims leaving for Pakistan, and concentrating resources for incoming Hindu and Sikh refugees. Patel clashed with Nehru and Azad over the allocation of houses in Delhi vacated by Muslims leaving for Pakistan; Nehru and Azad desired to allocate them for displaced Muslims, while Patel argued that no government professing secularism must make such exclusions. However, Patel was publicly defended by Gandhi and received widespread admiration and support for speaking frankly on communal issues and acting decisively and resourcefully to quell disorder and violence.^[56]

Political integration of India[edit]

This event formed the cornerstone of Patel's popularity in the post-independence era. Even today he is remembered as the man who united India. He is, in this regard, compared to Otto von Bismarck of Germany, who did the same thing in the 1860s. Under the plan of 3 June, more than 562 princely states were given the option of joining either India or Pakistan, or choosing independence. Indian nationalists and large segments of the public feared that if these states did not accede, most of the people and territory would be fragmented. The Congress as well as senior British officials considered Patel the best man for the task of achieving unification of the princely states with the Indian dominion. Gandhi had said to Patel, "[T]he problem of the States is so difficult that you alone can solve it".^[57] Patel was considered a statesman of integrity with the practical acumen and resolve to accomplish a monumental task. He asked V. P. Menon, a senior civil servant with whom he had worked on the partition of India, to become his right-hand man as chief secretary of the States Ministry. On 6 May 1947, Patel began lobbying the princes, attempting to make them receptive towards dialogue with the future government and forestall potential conflicts. Patel used social meetings and unofficial surroundings to engage most of the monarchs, inviting them to lunch and tea at his home in Delhi. At these meetings, Patel explained that there was no inherent conflict between the Congress and the princely order. Patel invoked the patriotism of India's monarchs, asking them to join in the independence of their nation and act as responsible rulers who cared about the future of their people. He persuaded the princes of 565 states of the impossibility of independence from the Indian republic, especially in the presence of growing opposition from their subjects. He proposed favourable terms for the merger, including the creation of privy purses for the rulers' descendants. While encouraging the rulers to act out of patriotism, Patel did not rule out force. Stressing that the princes would need to accede to India in good faith, he set a deadline of 15 August 1947 for them to sign the instrument of accession document. All but three of the states willingly merged into the Indian union; only Jammu and Kashmir, Junagadh, and Hyderabad did not fall into his basket.^[58]

Somnath temple Restoration

Somnath temple ruins, 1869

Patel ordered Somnath templereconstructed in 1948.

Hyderabad state in 1909. Its area stretched over large parts of the current Indian states of Telangana, Karnataka, and Maharashtra.

British Indian Empire in 1909

Junagadh was especially important to Patel, since it was in his home state of Gujarat. It was also important because in this Kathiawar district was the ultra-rich Somnath temple (which in the 11th century had been plundered by Mahmud of Ghazni, who damaged the temple and its idols to rob it of its riches, including emeralds, diamonds, and gold). Under pressure from Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto, the Nawab had acceded to Pakistan. It was, however, quite far from Pakistan, and 80% of its population was Hindu. Patel combined diplomacy with force, demanding that Pakistan annul the accession, and that the Nawab accede to India. He sent the Army to occupy three principalities of Junagadh to show his resolve. Following widespread protests and the formation of a civil government, or Aarzi Hukumat, both Bhutto and the Nawab fled to Karachi, and under Patel's orders the Indian Army and police units marched into the state. A plebiscite organised later produced a 99.5% vote for merger with India.^[59] In a speech at the Bahauddin College in Junagadh following the latter's take-over, Patel emphasised his feeling of urgency on Hyderabad, which he felt was more vital to India than Kashmir:

If Hyderabad does not see the writing on the wall, it goes the way Junagadh has gone. Pakistan attempted to set off Kashmir against Junagadh. When we raised the question of settlement in a democratic way, they (Pakistan) at once told us that they would consider it if we applied that policy to Kashmir. Our reply was that we would agree to Kashmir if they agreed to Hyderabad.^[59]

Hyderabad was the largest of the princely states, and it included parts of present-day Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Maharashtra states. Its ruler, the Nizam Osman Ali Khan, was a Muslim, although over 80% of its people were Hindu. The Nizam sought independence or accession with Pakistan. Muslim forces loyal to Nizam, called the Razakars, under Qasim Razvi, pressed the Nizam to hold out against India, while organising attacks on people on Indian soil. Even though a Standstill Agreement was signed due to the desperate efforts of Lord Mountbatten to avoid a war, the Nizam rejected deals and changed his positions.^[60] In September 1948 Patel emphasised in Cabinet meetings that India should talk no more, and reconciled Nehru and the Governor-General, Chakravarti Rajgopalachari, to military action. Following preparations, Patel ordered the Indian Army to invade Hyderabad (in his capacity as Acting Prime Minister) when Nehru was touring Europe.^[61] The action was termed Operation Polo, and thousands of Razakar forces were killed, but Hyderabad was forcefully secured and integrated into the Indian Union.^[62] The main aim of Mountbatten and Nehru in avoiding a forced annexation was to prevent an outbreak of Hindu–Muslim violence. Patel insisted that if Hyderabad were allowed to continue as an independent nation enclave surrounded by India, the prestige of the government would fall, and then neither Hindus nor Muslims would feel secure in its realm. After defeating Nizam, Patel retained him as the ceremonial chief of state, and held talks with him.^[63]There were 562 princely states in India which Sardar Patel unified.

Leading India[edit]

The Governor-General of India, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, along with Nehru and Patel, formed the "triumvirate" that ruled India from 1948 to 1950. Prime Minister Nehru was intensely popular with the masses, but Patel enjoyed the loyalty and the faith of rank and file Congressmen, state leaders, and India's civil servants. Patel was a senior leader in the Constituent Assembly of India and was responsible in large measure for shaping India's constitution. He is also known as the "Bismarck of India".^[64] Patel was a key force behind the appointment of Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar as the chairman of the drafting committee, and the inclusion of leaders from a diverse political spectrum in the process of writing the constitution.^[64]

Patel was the chairman of the committees responsible for minorities, tribal and excluded areas, fundamental rights, and provincial constitutions. Patel piloted a model constitution for the provinces in the Assembly, which contained limited powers for the state governor, who would defer to the president – he clarified it was not the intention to let the governor exercise power that could impede an elected government.^[64] He worked closely with Muslim leaders to end separate electorates and the more potent demand for reservation of seats for minorities.^[65] Patel held personal dialogues with leaders of other minorities on the question, and was responsible for the measure that allows the president to appoint Anglo-Indians to Parliament. His intervention was key to the passage of two articles that protected civil servants from political involvement and guaranteed their terms and privileges.^[64] He was also instrumental in the founding the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service, and for his defence of Indian civil servants from political attack; he is known as the "patron saint" of India's services. When a delegation of Gujarati farmers came to him citing their inability to send their milk production to the markets without being fleeced by intermediaries, Patel exhorted them to organise the processing and sale of milk by themselves, and guided them to create the Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union Limited, which preceded the Amul milk products brand. Patel also pledged the reconstruction of the ancient but dilapidated Somnath Temple in Saurashtra. He oversaw the restoration work and the creation of a public trust, and pledged to dedicate the temple upon the completion of work (the work was completed after his death and the temple was inaugurated by the first President of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad).

When the Pakistani invasion of Kashmir began in September 1947, Patel immediately wanted to send troops into Kashmir. But, agreeing with Nehru and Mountbatten, he waited until Kashmir's monarch had acceded to India. Patel then oversaw India's military operations to secure Srinagar and the Baramulla Pass, and the forces retrieved much territory from the invaders. Patel, along with Defence Minister Baldev Singh, administered the entire military effort, arranging for troops from different parts of India to be rushed to Kashmir and for a major military road connecting Srinagar to Pathankot to be built in six months.^[66] Patel strongly advised Nehru against going for arbitration to the United Nations, insisting that Pakistan had been wrong to support the invasion and the accession to India was valid. He did not want foreign interference in a bilateral affair. Patel opposed the release of Rs. 550 million to the Government of Pakistan, convinced that the money would go to finance the war against India in Kashmir. The Cabinet had approved his point but it was reversed when Gandhi, who feared an intensifying rivalry and further communal violence, went on a fast-unto-death to obtain the release. Patel, though not estranged from Gandhi, was deeply hurt at the rejection of his counsel and a Cabinet decision.^[67]

In 1949 a crisis arose when the number of Hindu refugees entering West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura from East Pakistan climbed to over 800,000. The refugees in many cases were being forcibly evicted by Pakistani authorities, and were victims of intimidation and violence.^[68] Nehru invited Liaquat Ali Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan, to find a peaceful solution. Despite his aversion, Patel reluctantly met Khan and discussed the matter. Patel strongly criticised Nehru's plan to sign a pact that would create minority commissions in both countries and pledge both India and Pakistan to a commitment to protect each other's minorities.^[69] Syama Prasad Mookerjee and K. C. Neogy, two Bengali ministers, resigned, and Nehru was intensely criticised in West Bengal for allegedly appeasing Pakistan. The pact was immediately in jeopardy. Patel, however, publicly came to Nehru's aid. He gave emotional speeches to members of Parliament, and the people of West Bengal, and spoke with scores of delegations of Congressmen, Hindus, Muslims, and other public interest groups, persuading them to give peace a final effort.^[70]

In April 2015 the Government of India declassified surveillance reports suggesting that Patel, while Home Minister, and Nehru were among officials involved in alleged government-authorised spying on the family of Subhas Chandra Bose.^[71]

Father of modern All India Services[edit]

“

There is no alternative to this administrative system... The Union will go, you will not have a united India if you do not have good All-India Service which has the independence to speak out its mind, which has sense of security that you will standby your work... If you do not adopt this course, then do not follow the present Constitution. Substitute something else... these people are the instrument. Remove them and I see nothing but a picture of chaos all over the country.

”

— Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Constituent Assembly discussing the role of All India Services., ^[72]^[73]^[74]

He was also instrumental in the creation of the All India Services which he described as the country’s "Steel Frame". In his address to the probationers of these services, he asked them to be guided by the spirit of service in day-to-day administration. He reminded them that the ICS was no longer neither Imperial, nor civil, nor imbued with any spirit of service after Independence. His exhortation to the probationers to maintain utmost impartiality and incorruptibility of administration is as relevant today as it was then. "A civil servant cannot afford to, and must not, take part in politics. Nor must he involve himself in communal wrangles. To depart from the path of rectitude in either of these respects is to debase public service and to lower its dignity," he had cautioned them on 21 April 1947.^[75]

He, more than anyone else in post-independence India, realized the crucial role that civil services play in administering a country, in not merely maintaining law and order, but running the institutions that provide the binding cement to a society. He, more than any other contemporary of his, was aware of the needs of a sound, stable administrative structure as the lynchpin of a functioning polity. The present-day all-India administrative services owe their origin to the man’s sagacity and thus he is regarded as Father of modern All India Services.^[76]

Gandhi's death and relations with Nehru[edit]

Patel was intensely loyal to Gandhi, and both he and Nehru looked to him to arbitrate disputes. However, Nehru and Patel sparred over national issues. When Nehru asserted control over Kashmir policy, Patel objected to Nehru's sidelining his home ministry's officials.^[77]Nehru was offended by Patel's decision-making regarding the states' integration, having consulted neither him nor the Cabinet. Patel asked Gandhi to relieve him of his obligation to serve, believing that an open political battle would hurt India. After much personal deliberation and contrary to Patel's prediction, Gandhi on 30 January 1948 told Patel not to leave the government. A free India, according to Gandhi, needed both Patel and Nehru. Patel was the last man to privately talk with Gandhi, who was assassinated just minutes after Patel's departure.^[78] At Gandhi's wake, Nehru and Patel embraced each other and addressed the nation together. Patel gave solace to many associates and friends and immediately moved to forestall any possible violence.^[79] Within two months of Gandhi's death, Patel suffered a major heart attack; the timely action of his daughter, his secretary, and a nurse saved Patel's life. Speaking later, Patel attributed the attack to the "grief bottled up" due to Gandhi's death.^[80]

Criticism arose from the media and other politicians that Patel's home ministry had failed to protect Gandhi. Emotionally exhausted, Patel tendered a letter of resignation, offering to leave the government. Patel's secretary persuaded him to withhold the letter, seeing it as fodder for Patel's political enemies and political conflict in India.^[81] However, Nehru sent Patel a letter dismissing any question of personal differences or desire for Patel's ouster. He reminded Patel of their 30-year partnership in the independence struggle and asserted that after Gandhi's death, it was especially wrong for them to quarrel. Nehru, Rajagopalachari, and other Congressmen publicly defended Patel. Moved, Patel publicly endorsed Nehru's leadership and refuted any suggestion of discord, and dispelled any notion that he sought to be prime minister.^[81] Though the two committed themselves to joint leadership and non-interference in Congress party affairs, they would criticise each other in matters of policy, clashing on the issues of Hyderabad's integration and UN mediation in Kashmir. Nehru declined Patel's counsel on sending assistance to Tibet after its 1950 invasion by the People's Republic of China and on ejecting the Portuguese from Goa by military force.^[82] Nehru also tried to scuttle Patel's plan with regards to Hyderabad. During a meeting, according to the then civil servant MKK Nair in his book "With No Ill Feeling to Anybody", Nehru shouted and accused Patel of being a communalist.^{[citation needed]} Patel also one on occasion called Nehru, a Maulana, for appeasing Muslims.^[83]

When Nehru pressured Dr. Rajendra Prasad to decline a nomination to become the first President of India in 1950 in favour of Rajagopalachari, he angered the party, which felt Nehru was attempting to impose his will. Nehru sought Patel's help in winning the party over, but Patel declined, and Prasad was duly elected. Nehru opposed the 1950 Congress presidential candidate Purushottam Das Tandon, a conservative Hindu leader, endorsing Jivatram Kripalani instead and threatening to resign if Tandon was elected. Patel rejected Nehru's views and endorsed Tandon in Gujarat, where Kripalani received not one vote despite hailing from that state himself.^[84] Patel believed Nehru had to understand that his will was not law with the Congress, but he personally discouraged Nehru from resigning after the latter felt that the party had no confidence in him.^[85]

On 29 March 1949 authorities lost radio contact with a plane carrying Patel, his daughter Maniben, and the Maharaja of Patiala. Engine failure caused the pilot to make an emergency landing in a desert area in Rajasthan. With all passengers safe, Patel and others tracked down a nearby village and local officials. When Patel returned to Delhi, thousands of Congressmen gave him a resounding welcome. In Parliament, MPs gave a long standing ovation to Patel, stopping proceedings for half an hour.^[86]

In his twilight years, Patel was honoured by members of Parliament. He was awarded honorary doctorates of law by Nagpur University, the University of Allahabad and Banaras Hindu University in November 1948, subsequently receiving honorary doctorates from Osmania University in February 1949 and from Punjab University in March 1949.^[87]^[88] Previously, Patel had been featured on the cover page of the January 1947 issue of Time magazine.^[89]

Death[edit]

Patel's health declined rapidly through the summer of 1950. He later began coughing blood, whereupon Maniben began limiting her meetings and working hours and arranged for a personalised medical staff to begin attending to Patel. The Chief Minister of West Bengaland doctor Bidhan Roy heard Patel make jokes about his impending end, and in a private meeting Patel frankly admitted to his ministerial colleague N. V. Gadgil that he was not going to live much longer. Patel's health worsened after 2 November, when he began losing consciousness frequently and was confined to his bed. He was flown to Bombay (now Mumbai) on 12 December on advice from Dr Roy, to recuperate as his condition was deemed critical.^[90] Nehru, Rajagopalchari, Rajendra Prasad, and Menon all came to see him off at the airport in Delhi. Patel was extremely weak and had to be carried onto the aircraft in a chair. In Bombay, large crowds gathered at Santacruz Airport to greet him. To spare him from this stress, the aircraft landed at Juhu Aerodrome, where Chief Minister B. G. Kher and Morarji Desai were present to receive him with a car belonging to the Governor of Bombay that took Vallabhbhai to Birla House.^[91]^[92]

After suffering a massive heart attack (his second), Patel died at 9:37 a.m. on 15 December 1950 at Birla House in Bombay.^[93] In an unprecedented and unrepeated gesture, on the day after his death more than 1,500 officers of India's civil and police services congregated to mourn at Patel's residence in Delhi and pledged "complete loyalty and unremitting zeal" in India's service.^[94] Numerous governments and world leaders sent messages of condolence upon Patel's death, including Trygve Lie, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, President Sukarno of Indonesia, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan of Pakistan and Prime Minister Clement Attlee of the United Kingdom.^[95]

In homage to Patel, the Indian government declared a week of national mourning.^[96] Patel's cremation was planned at Girgaum Chowpatty, but this was changed to Sonapur (now Marine Lines) when his daughter conveyed that it was his wish to be cremated like a common man in the same place as his wife and brother were earlier cremated. His cremation in Sonapur in Bombay was attended by a crowd of one million including Prime Minister Nehru, Rajagopalachari, and President Rajendra Prasad.^[92]^[97]^[98]

Reception[edit]

The coat of Patel, on display at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Memorial, Ahmedabad

During his lifetime, Vallabhbhai Patel received criticism for an alleged bias against Muslims during the time of Partition. He was criticised by Maulana Azad and others for readily plumping for partition.^[99] Guha says that, during the Partition, Nehru wanted the government to make the Muslims stay back and feel secure in India while Patel was inclined to place that responsibility on the individuals themselves. Patel also told Nehru that the minority also had to remove the doubts that were entertained about their loyalty based on their past association with the demand of Pakistan.^[100] However, Patel successfully prevented attacks upon a train of Muslim refugees leaving India.^[101] In September 1947 he was said to have had ten thousand Muslims sheltered safely in the Red Fort and had free kitchens opened for them during the communal violence.^[102] Patel was also said to be more forgiving of Indian nationalism and harsher on Pakistan.^[103] He exposed a riot plot, confiscated a large haul of weapons from the Delhi Jumma Masjid, and had a few plotters killed by the police, but his approach was said to have been harsh.^[102]

Patel was also criticised by supporters of Subhas Chandra Bose for acting coercively to put down politicians not supportive of Gandhi.^[104] Socialist politicians such as Jaya Prakash Narayan and Asoka Mehta criticised him for his personal proximity to Indian industrialists such as the Birla and Sarabhai families. It is said that Patel was friendly towards capitalists while Nehru believed in the state controlling the economy.^[103] Also, Patel was more inclined to support the West in the emerging Cold War.^[103]

Nehru and Patel[edit]

Some historians and admirers of Patel such as Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India and industrialist J. R. D. Tata have expressed the opinion that Patel would have made a better Prime Minister for India than Nehru.^[105]These admirers and Nehru's critics cite Nehru's belated embrace of Patel's advice regarding the UN and Kashmir and the integration of Goa by military action and Nehru's rejection of Patel's advice on China.^[106] Proponents of free enterprise cite the failings of Nehru's socialist policies as opposed to Patel's defence of property rights and his mentorship of what was to be later known as the Amul co-operative project.^[107]^[108] However, A. G. Noorani, in comparing Nehru and Patel, writes that Nehru had a broader understanding of the world than Patel.^[109]

Legacy[edit]

The central hall of the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Memorial

In his eulogy, delivered the day after Patel's death, Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai, the Secretary-General of the Ministry of External Affairs, paid tribute to "a great patriot, a great administrator and a great man. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was all three, a rare combination in any historic epoch and in any country."^[87] Bajpai lauded Patel for his achievements as a patriot and as an administrator, notably his vital role in securing India's stability in the aftermath of Independence and Partition:

...History holds many examples of the fruits of freedom squandered by lack of attention to stability and order, the twin foundations of society. Though a revolutionary in his fight against foreign rule, Sardar Patel was no believer in abrupt or violent change; progress by evolution was really his motto. And so, although in August 1947 power changed hands, and with it the spirit of the administration, the machinery of Government was preserved. As Home Minister and Minister for States, the Sardar had a double task, conservative in the good sense of the word, in what had been Provinces in the old India, creative in the Indian States. Neither was easy. To the ordinary stresses of a transition caused by the withdrawal of trained personnel which had wielded all power for a hundred years was added the strain of partition, and the immense human upheavals and suffering that followed it. The fate of our new State hung in the balance during those perilous months when millions moved across the new frontiers under conditions which are still vivid - indeed, too vivid - in our memories, and therefore, need not be described. That despite some oscillation the scales stayed steady was due not only to the faith of the people in its leaders, but to the firm will and strong hand of the new Home Minister.

^[87]

Among Patel's surviving family, Maniben Patel lived in a flat in Mumbai for the rest of her life following her father's death; she often led the work of the Sardar Patel Memorial Trust, which organises the prestigious annual Sardar Patel Memorial Lectures, and other charitable organisations. Dahyabhai Patel was a businessman who was elected to serve in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of the Indian Parliament) as an MP in the 1960s.^[110]

For many decades after his death, there was a perceived lack of effort from the Government of India, the national media, and the Congress party regarding commemoration of Patel's life and work.^[111] Patel was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour, in 1991.^[112] It was announced in 2014 that his birthday, 31 October, would become an annual national celebration known as Rashtriya Ekta Diwas (National Unity Day).^[113] Patel's legacy has been surprisingly adored by the RSS and BJP, against whom Patel had acted coercively, forcing them to stay away from communal politics after Gandhi's assassination.

Patel's family home in Karamsad is preserved in his memory.^[114] The Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Memorial in Ahmedabad was established in 1980 at the Moti Shahi Mahal. It comprises a museum, a gallery of portraits and historical pictures, and a library containing important documents and books associated with Patel and his life. Amongst the exhibits are many of Patel's personal effects and relics from various periods of his personal and political life.^[115]

Patel is the namesake of many public institutions in India. A major initiative to build dams, canals, and hydroelectric power plants in the Narmada river valley to provide a tri-state area with drinking water and electricity and to increase agricultural production was named the Sardar Sarovar. Patel is also the namesake of the Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology in Surat, Sardar Patel University, Sardar Patel High School, and the Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, which are among the nation's premier institutions. India's national police training academy is also named after him.^[116]

The international airport of Ahmedabad is named after him. Also the international cricket stadium of Ahmedabad (also known as the Motera Stadium) is named after him. A national cricket stadium in Navrangpura, Ahmedabad, used for national matches and events, is also named after him. The chief outer ring road encircling Ahmedabad is named S P Ring Road. The Gujarat government's institution for training government functionaries is named Sardar Patel Institute of Public Administration.^{[citation needed]}

Rashtriya Ekta Diwas[edit]

Rashtriya Ekta Diwas (National Unity Day) was introduced by the Government of India and inaugurated by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014. The intent is to pay tribute to Patel, who was instrumental in keeping India united. It is to be celebrated on 31 October every year as annual commemoration of the birthday of the Iron Man of India Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, one of the founding leaders of Republic of India. The official statement for Rashtriya Ekta Diwas by the Home Ministry of India cites that the National Unity Day "will provide an opportunity to re-affirm the inherent strength and resilience of our nation to withstand the actual and potential threats to the unity, integrity and security of our country."^[117]

National Unity Day celebrates the birthday of Patel because, during his term as Home Minister of India, he is credited for the integration of over 550 independent princely states into India from 1947-49 by Independence Act (1947). He is known as the "Bismarck^[a] of India".^[118]^[119] The celebration is complemented with the speech of Prime Minister of India followed by the "Run for Unity".^[120] The theme for 2016 celebrations was "Integration of India".^[121]

Statue of unity[edit]

The Statue of Unity is an under construction monument dedicated to Indian independence movement leader Vallabhbhai Patel located in the Indian state of Gujarat. 182 metres (597feet) in height, it is to be located facing the Narmada Dam, 3.2 km away on the river island called Sadhu Bet near Vadodara in Gujarat. This statue is planned to be spread over 20,000 square meters of project area and will be surrounded by an artificial lake spread across 12km of area. It would be the world's tallest statue when completed,.^[122] standing at a height of 182 metres (600ft) ^[123] This is getting inaugurated by India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 31 Oct. 2018.

Other institutions and monuments[edit]

Patel statue at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Chowk, Katra Gulab Singh, Pratapgarh

Sardar Patel Memorial Trust
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Memorial, Ahmedabad
Sardar Sarovar Dam, Gujarat
Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat
Sardar Patel University, Gujarat
Sardar Patel University of Police, Security and Criminal Justice, Jodhpur
Sardar Patel Institute of Technology, Vasad
Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, New Delhi
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy, Hyderabad
Sardar Patel College of Engineering, Mumbai
Sardar Patel Institute of Technology, Mumbai
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Chowk in Katra Gulab Singh, Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Institute of Technology, Vasad
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, Ahmedabad
Sardar Patel Stadium
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium, Ahmedabad
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel University of Agriculture and Technology

Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute

Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Subhas Chandra Bose
Netaji; Subhas Chandra Bose
Head of State and Government (Prime Minister) of the; Provisional Government of Free India(Undivided India); (Ārzī Hukūmat-e-Āzād Hind);
	In office; 21 October 1943 – 18 August 1945
Preceded by	Office created
Succeeded by	Office abolished
President of the Indian National Congress
	In office; 1938 – 1939
Preceded by	Jawaharlal Nehru
Succeeded by	Rajendra Prasad
Personal details
Born	Subhas Chandra Bose; 23 January 1897; Cuttack, British India
Died	18 August 1945 (aged 48); Taihoku, Japanese Taiwan; (present-day Taipei);
Political party	Indian National Congress; Forward Bloc (1939–1940);
Spouse(s)	Emilie Schenkl
Children	Anita Bose Pfaff
Mother	Prabhavati Dutt
Father	Janakinath Bose
Education	Ravenshaw Collegiate; Scottish Church College;
Alma mater	University of Calcutta; Fitzwilliam College;
Known for	Indian nationalism
Signature

Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Bal Gangadhar Tilak
	Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Born	23 July 1856; Ratnagiri, Bombay State, British India (present-day Maharashtra, India)
Died	1 August 1920 (aged 64); Bombay, British India (present-day Maharashtra, India)
Occupation	Author, politician, freedom fighter
Political party	Indian National Congress
Movement	Indian Independence movement
Children	Sridhar Balwant Tilak

Vallabhbhai Patel
Sardar; Vallabhbhai Patel
1st Deputy Prime Minister of India
	In office; 15 August 1947 – 15 December 1950
Monarch	George VI
Governor General	C. Rajagopalachari
Prime Minister	Jawaharlal Nehru
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Morarji Desai
Minister of Home Affairs
	In office; 15 August 1947 – 15 December 1950
Prime Minister	Jawaharlal Nehru
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	C. Rajagopalachari
1st Commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces
	In office; 15 August 1947 – 15 December 1950
Monarch	George VI
Governor General	C. Rajagopalachari
Prime Minister	Jawaharlal Nehru
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Position abolished (merged to the President of India)
Personal details
Born	Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel; 31 October 1875; Nadiad, Bombay Presidency, British India; (now in Gujarat, India)
Died	15 December 1950 (aged 75); Bombay, Bombay State, India; (now Mumbai, Maharashtra, India)
Cause of death	Heart attack
Political party	Indian National Congress
Spouse(s)	Jhaverba Patel
Children	Maniben Patel; Dahyabhai Patel
Mother	Ladba
Father	Jhaverbhai Patel
Alma mater	Inns of Court
Profession	Barrister; Politician; Activist; Freedom Fighter;
Awards	Bharat Ratna (1991) (posthumously)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bal Gangadhar Tilak (or Lokmanya Tilak,

pronunciation (help·info); 23 July 1856 – 1 August 1920), born as Keshav Gangadhar Tilak, was an Indian nationalist, teacher, lawyer and an independence activist. He was the first leader of the Indian Independence Movement. The British colonial authorities called him "The father of the Indian unrest." He was also conferred with the title of "Lokmanya", which means "accepted by the people (as their leader)".^[3]

Tilak was one of the first and strongest advocates of Swaraj ("self-rule") and a strong radical in Indian consciousness. He is known for his quote in Marathi: "Swarajya is my birthright and I shall have it!". He formed a close alliance with many Indian National Congress leaders including Bipin Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai, Aurobindo Ghose, V. O. Chidambaram Pillai and Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Early life[edit]

Tilak was born in a Marathi Chitpavan Brahmin family in Ratnagiri as Keshav Gangadhar Tilak, in the headquarters of the eponymous district of present-day Maharashtra (then British India) on 23 July 1856.^[1] His ancestral village was Chikhali. His father, Gangadhar Tilak was a school teacher and a Sanskrit scholar who died when Tilak was sixteen. In 1871 Tilak was married to Tapibai (Née Bal) when he was sixteen, a few months before his father's death. After marriage, her name was changed to Satyabhamabai. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts in first class in Mathematics from Deccan College of Pune in 1877. He left his M.A. course of study midway to join the LL.B course instead, and in 1879 he obtained his LL.B degree from Government Law College .^[4] After graduating, Tilak started teaching mathematics at a private school in Pune. Later, due to ideological differences with the colleagues in the new school, he withdrew and became a journalist. Tilak actively participated in public affairs. He stated: "Religion and practical life are not different.The real spirit is to make the country your family instead of working only for your own. The step beyond is to serve humanity and the next step is to serve God."^[5]

Inspired by Vishnushastri Chiplunkar, he co-founded the New English school for secondary education in 1880 with a few of his college friends, including Gopal Ganesh Agarkar, Mahadev Ballal Namjoshi. and Vishnushastri Chiplunkar. Their goal was to improve the quality of education for India's youth.The success of the school led them to set up the Deccan Education Society in 1884 to create a new system of education that taught young Indians nationalist ideas through an emphasis on Indian culture.^[6] The Society established the Fergusson College in 1885 for post-secondary studies. Tilak taught mathematics at Fergusson College. In 1890, Tilak left the Deccan Education Society for more openly political work.^[7] He began a mass movement towards independence by an emphasis on a religious and cultural revival.^[8]

Political career[edit]

Tilak had a long political career agitating for Indian autonomy from the British rule.{ Before Gandhi, he was the most widely known Indian political leader. Unlike his fellow Maharashtrian contemporary, Gokhale, Tilak was considered a radical Nationalist but a Social conservative. He was imprisoned on a number of occasions that included a long stint at Mandalay. At one stage in his political life he was called "the father of Indian unrest" by british author Sir Valentine Chirol.^[9]

Indian National Congress[edit]

Tilak joined the Indian National Congress in 1890.^{[citation needed]} He opposed its moderate attitude, especially towards the fight for self-government. He was one of the most-eminent radicals at the time.^[10] In fact, it was the Swadeshi movement of 1905-1907 that resulted in the split within the Indian National Congress into the Moderates and the Extremists^[7]

Despite being personally opposed to early marriage, Tilak was against the 1891 Age of Consent bill, seeing it as interference with Hinduism and a dangerous precedent.^{[citation needed]} The act raised the age at which a girl could marry from 10 to 12 years.^{[citation needed]}

During late 1896, a bubonic plague spread from Bombay to Pune, and by January 1897, it reached epidemic proportions. British troops were brought in to deal with the emergency and harsh measures were employed including forced entry into private houses, examination of occupants, evacuation to hospitals and segregation camps, removing and destroying personal possessions, and preventing patients from entering or leaving the city. By the end of May, the epidemic was under control. They were widely regarded as acts of tyranny and oppression. Tilak took up this issue by publishing inflammatory articles in his paper Kesari (Kesari was written in Marathi, and "Maratha" was written in English), quoting the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, to say that no blame could be attached to anyone who killed an oppressor without any thought of reward. Following this, on 22 June 1897, Commissioner Rand and another British officer, Lt. Ayerst were shot and killed by the Chapekar brothers and their other associates. According to Barbara and Thomas R. Metcalf, Tilak "almost surely concealed the identities of the perpetrators".^[11]^:154 Tilak was charged with incitement to murder and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. When he emerged from prison in present-day Mumbai, he was revered as a martyr and a national hero.^{[citation needed]} He adopted a new slogan coined by his associate Kaka Baptista: "Swaraj (self-rule) is my birthright and I shall have it."^[12]

Following the Partition of Bengal, which was a strategy set out by Lord Curzon to weaken the nationalist movement, Tilak encouraged the Swadeshi movement and the Boycott movement.^[13] The movement consisted of the boycott of foreign goods and also the social boycott of any Indian who used foreign goods. The Swadeshi movement consisted of the usage of natively produced goods. Once foreign goods were boycotted, there was a gap which had to be filled by the production of those goods in India itself. Tilak said that the Swadeshi and Boycott movements are two sides of the same coin.^{[citation needed]}

Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal together popularly known as Lal-Bal-Pal triumvirate

Tilak opposed the moderate views of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, and was supported by fellow Indian nationalists Bipin Chandra Pal in Bengal and Lala Lajpat Rai in Punjab. They were referred to as the "Lal-Bal-Pal triumvirate". In 1907, the annual session of the Congress Party was held at Surat, Gujarat. Trouble broke out over the selection of the new president of the Congress between the moderate and the radical sections of the party . The party split into the radicals faction, led by Tilak, Pal and Lajpat Rai, and the moderate faction. Nationalists like Aurobindo Ghose, V. O. Chidambaram Pillai were Tilak supporters.^[10]^[14]

Sedition Charges[edit]

During his lifetime among other political cases, Bal Gangadhar Tilak had been tried for Sedition Charges in three times by British India Government—in 1897,^[15] 1909,^[16] and 1916.^[17] In 1897, Tilak was sentenced to 18 months in prison for preaching disaffection against the Raj. In 1909, he was again charged with sedition and intensifying racial animosity between Indians and the British. The Bombay lawyer Muhammad Ali Jinnah in Tilak's defence could not annul the evidence in Tilak's polemical articles and Tilak was sentenced to six years in prison in Burma.^[7]

Imprisonment in Mandalay[edit]

On 30 April 1908, two Bengali youths, Prafulla Chaki and Khudiram Bose, threw a bomb on a carriage at Muzzafarpur, to kill the Chief Presidency Magistrate Douglas Kingsford of Calcutta fame, but erroneously killed two women traveling in it. While Chaki committed suicide when caught, Bose was hanged. Tilak, in his paper Kesari, defended the revolutionaries and called for immediate Swaraj or self-rule. The Government swiftly charged him with sedition. At the conclusion of the trial, a special jury convicted him by 7:2 majority. The judge, Dinshaw D. Davar^[18] gave him a six years jail sentence to be served in Mandalay, Burma and a fine of Rs 1,000. On being asked by the judge whether he had anything to say, Tilak said:

All that I wish to say is that, in spite of the verdict of the jury, I still maintain that I am innocent. There are higher powers that rule the destinies of men and nations; and I think, it may be the will of Providence that the cause I represent may be benefited more by my suffering than by my pen and tongue.

In passing sentence, the judge indulged in some scathing strictures against Tilak's conduct. He threw off the judicial restraint which, to some extent, was observable in his charge to the jury. He condemned the articles as "seething with sedition", as preaching violence, speaking of murders with approval. "You hail the advent of the bomb in India as if something had come to India for its good. I say, such journalism is a curse to the country". Tilak was sent to Mandalay from 1908 to 1914.^[19] While imprisoned, he continued to read and write, further developing his ideas on the Indian nationalist movement. While in the prison he wrote the Gita Rahasya. Many copies of which were sold, and the money was donated for the Indian Independence movement.^{[citation needed]}.

Life after Mandalay[edit]

Tilak developed diabetes during his sentence in Mandalay prison. This and the general ordeal of prison life had mellowed him at his release on 16 June 1914. When World War I started in August of that year, Tilak cabled the King-Emperor George V of his support and turned his oratory to find new recruits for war efforts. He welcomed The Indian Councils Act, popularly known as Minto-Morley Reforms, which had been passed by British Parliament in May 1909, terming it as "a marked increase of confidence between the Rulers and the Ruled". It was his conviction that acts of violence actually diminished, rather than hastening, the pace of political reforms. He was eager for reconciliation with Congress and had abandoned his demand for direct action and settled for agitations "strictly by constitutional means" – a line advocated by his rival Gokhale.

Tilak tried to convince Mohandas Gandhi to leave the idea of Total non-violence ("Total Ahimsa") and try to get self-rule ("Swarajya") by all means.^{[citation needed]}

All India Home Rule League[edit]

Later, Tilak re-united with his fellow nationalists and re-joined the Indian National Congress in 1916. He also helped found the All India Home Rule League in 1916–18, with G. S. Khaparde and Annie Besant. After years of trying to reunite the moderate and radical factions, he gave up and focused on the Home Rule League, which sought self-rule. Tilak travelled from village to village for support from farmers and locals to join the movement towards self-rule.^[19] Tilak was impressed by the Russian Revolution, and expressed his admiration for Vladimir Lenin.^[20] The league had 1400 members in April 1916, and by 1917 membership had grown to approximately 32,000. Tilak started his Home Rule League in Maharashtra, Central Provinces, and Karnataka and Berar region. Besant's League was active in the rest part of India.^[21]

Tilak, progressed into a prominent nationalist after his close association with Indian nationalists following the partition of Bengal. When asked in Calcutta whether he envisioned a Maratha-type of government for independent India, Tilak replied that the Maratha-dominated governments of 17th and 18th centuries were outmoded in the 20th century, and he wanted a genuine federal system for Free India where every religion and race was an equal partner.^{[citation needed]} He added that only such a form of government would be able to safeguard India's freedom. He was the first Congress leader to suggest that Hindi written in the Devanagari script be accepted as the sole national language of India.^[22]

Religio-Political Views[edit]

Tilak sought to unite the Indian population for mass political action throughout his life. For this to happen, he believed there needed to be a comprehensive justification for anti-British pro-Hindu activism. For this end, he sought justification in the supposed original principles of the Ramayana and the Bhagavad Gita. He named this call to activism karma-yoga or the yoga of action.^[23] In his interpretation, the Bhagavad Gita reveals this principle in the conversation between Krishna and Arjuna when Krishna exhorts Arjuna to fight his enemies (which in this case included many members of his family) because it is his duty. In Tilaks opinion, the Bhagavad Gita provided a strong justification of activism. However, this conflicted with the mainstream exegesis of the text at the time which was predominated by renunciate views and the idea of acts purely for God. This was represented by the two mainstream views at the time by Ramanuja and Adi Shankara. To find support for this philosophy, Tilak wrote his own interpretations of the relevant passages of the Gita and backed his views using Jnanadeva's commentary on the Gita, Ramanuja's critical commentary and his own translation of the Gita.^[24] His main battle was against the renunciate views of the time which conflicted with worldly activism. To fight this, he went to extents to reinterpret words such as karma, dharma, yoga as well as the concept of renunciation itself. Because he found his rationalization on Hindu religious symbols and lines, this alienated many non-Hindus such as the Muslims who began to ally with the British for support.

Social views[edit]

Tilak was strongly opposed to liberal trends emerging in Pune such as women's rights and social reforms against untouchability.^[25]^[26]^[27]

Women's issues[edit]

Tilak vehemently opposed the establishment of the first Native girls High school (now called Huzurpaga) in Pune in 1885 and its curriculum using his newspapers, the Mahratta and Kesari.^[26]^[28]^[29] Tilak was also opposed to intercaste marriage, particularly the match where an upper caste woman married a lower caste man.^[29] In the case of Deshasthas, Chitpawans and Karhades, he encouraged these three Maharashtrian Brahmin groups to give up "caste exclusiveness" and intermarry.^[30] Tilak officially opposed the age of consent bill which raised the age of marriage from ten to twelve for girls, however he was willing to sign a circular that increased age of marriage for girls to sixteen and twenty for boys. In his opinion, self-rule took precedence over any social reform.^[31]

Child bride Rukhmabai was married at the age of eleven but refused to go and live with her husband. The husband sued for restitution of conjugal rights, initially lost but appealed the decision. On 4 March 1887, Justice Farran, using interpretations of Hindu laws, ordered Rukhmabai to "go live with her husband or face six months of imprisonment". Tilak approved of this decision of the court and said that the court was following Hindu Dharmaśāstras. Rukhmabai responded that she would rather face imprisonment than obey the verdict. Her marriage was later dissolved by Queen Victoria. Later, she went on to receive her Doctor of Medicine degree from the London School of Medicine for Women.^[32]^[33]^[34]^[35]

In 1890, when an eleven year old Phulamani Bai died while having sexual intercourse with her much older husband, the Parsi social reformer Behramji Malabari supported the Age of Consent Act, 1891 to raise the age of a girl's eligibility for marriage. Tilak opposed the Bill and said that the Parsis as well as the English had no jurisdiction over the (Hindu) religious matters. He blamed the girl for having "defective female organs" and questioned how the husband could be "persecuted diabolically for doing a harmless act". He called the girl one of those "dangerous freaks of nature".^[27]

Tilak did not have a progressive view when it came to gender relations. He did not believe that Hindu women should get a modern education. Rather, he had a more conservative view, believing that women were meant to be homemakers who had to subordinate themselves to the needs of their husbands and children.^[7]

Untouchability[edit]

Tilak refused to sign a petition for the abolition of untouchability in 1918, two years before his death, although he had spoken against it earlier in a meeting.^[25]

Esteem for Swami Vivekananda[edit]

Tilak and Swami Vivekananda had great mutual respect and esteem for each other. They met accidentally while travelling by train in 1892 and Tilak had Vivekananda as a guest in his house. A person who was present there(Basukaka), heard that it was agreed between Vivekananda and Tilak that Tilak would work towards nationalism in the "political" arena , while Vivekananda would work for nationalism in the "religious" arena. When Vivekanada passed away at a young age , Tilak expressed great sorrow and paid tributes to him in the Kesari.^[36]^[37]^[38]^[39] Tilak said about Vivekananda:

"No Hindu, who, has the interests of Hinduism at his heart, could help feeling grieved over Vivekananda's samadhi. Vivekananda, in short, had taken the work of keeping the banner of Advaita philosophy forever flying among all the nations of the world and made them realize the true greatness of Hindu religion and of the Hindu people. He had hoped that he would crown his achievement with a fulfillment of this task by virtue of his learning, eloquence, enthusiasm and sincerity, just as he had laid a secure foundation for it; but with Swami's samadhi these hopes have gone.Thousands of years ago, another saint, Shankaracharya, who, showed to the world the glory and greatness of Hinduism. At the fag of the 19th century, the second Shankaracharya is Vivekananda, who, showed to the world the glory of Hinduism. His work has yet to be completed. We have lost our glory, our independence, everything."^[40]

Conflicts with Shahu over caste issues[edit]

Shahu had several conflicts with Tilak as the latter agreed with the Brahmin decision of puranic rituals for the Marathas that were intended for Shudras. Tilak even suggested that the Marathas should be "content" with the Shudra status assigned to them by the Brahmins. Tilak's newspapers as well as the press in Kolhapur criticized Shahu for his caste prejudice and his unreasoned hostility towards Brahmins. These included serious allegations such as sexual assaults by Shahu against four Brahmin women. An englishwoman named lady Minto was petitioned to help them. The agent of Shahu had blamed these allegations on the "troublesome brahmins". Tilak and another Brahmin suffered from the confiscation of estates by Shahu, the first during a quarrel between Shahu and the Shankaracharya of Sankareshwar and later in another issue.^[41]^[42]

Social contributions and legacy[edit]

Tilak started two weeklies, Kesari ("The Lion") in Marathi and Mahratta in English (sometimes referred as 'Maratha' in Academic Study Books)^[43] in 1880–81 with Gopal Ganesh Agarkar as the first editor. By this he was recognized as 'awakener of India'. As Kesari later became a daily and continues publication to this day.

In 1894, Tilak transformed the household worshipping of Ganesha into a grand public event (Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav). The celebrations consisted of several days of processions, music and food. They were organized by the means of subscriptions by neighbourhood, caste, or occupation. Students often would celebrate Hindu and national glory and address political issues; including patronage of Swadeshi goods.^[11]^:152

In 1895, Tilak founded the Shri Shivaji Fund Committee for celebration of "Shiv Jayanti", the birth anniversary of Chhatrapati Shivaji, the founder of the Maratha Empire. The project also had the objective of funding the reconstruction of the tomb (Samadhi) of Shivaji at Raigad Fort. For this second objective, Tilak established the Shri Shivaji Raigad Smarak Mandal along with Senapati Khanderao Dabhade II of Talegaon Dabhade, who became the founder President of the Mandal.

The events like the Ganapati festival and Shiv Jayanti were used by Tilak to build a national spirit beyond the circle of educated elite in opposition to colonial rule. But it also exacerbated Hindu-Muslim differences. The festival organizers would urge Hindus to protect cows and boycott the Muharram celebrations organized by Shi'a Muslims, in which Hindus had formerly often participated. Thus, although the celebrations were meant to be a way to oppose colonial rule, they also contributed to religious tensions.^[11]^:152 Contemporary Marathi Hindu nationalist parties like the Shivsena took up his reverence for Shivaji.^{[citation needed]} However, Indian Historian, Uma Chakravarti cites Professor Gordon Johnson and states "It is significant that even at the time when Tilak was making political use of Shivaji the question of conceding Kshatriya status to him as maratha was resisted by the conservative Brahmins including Tilak. While Shivaji was a Brave man, all his bravery, it was argued, did not give him the right to a status that very nearly approached that of a Brahmin. Further, the fact that Shivaji worshiped the Brahmmanas in no way altered social relations, 'since it was as a Shudra he did it - as a Shudra the servant, if not the slave, of the Brahmin'".^[44]

The Deccan Education Society that Tilak founded with others in the 1880s still runs Institutions in Pune like the Fergusson College.

The Swadeshi movement started by Tilak at the beginning of the 20th century became part of the Independence movement until that goal was achieved in 1947. One can even say Swadeshi remained part of Indian Government policy until the 1990s when the Congress Government liberalised the economy.^[45]

Tilak Smarak Ranga Mandir, a theatre auditorium in Pune is dedicated to him. In 2007, the Government of India released a coin to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Tilak.^[46]^[47]

Tilak said, "I regard India as my Motherland and my Goddess, the people in India are my kith and kin, and loyal and steadfast work for their political and social emancipation is my highest religion and duty".^[48]

Lokmanya: Ek Yug Purush is a film released on January 2, 2015 based on his life. Directed by Om Raut, Tilak is played by actor Subodh Bhave.

Books[edit]

In 1903, he wrote the book The Arctic Home in the Vedas. In it, he argued that the Vedas could only have been composed in the Arctics, and the Aryan bards brought them south after the onset of the last ice age. He proposed a new way to determine the exact time of the Vedas.
In "The Orion"^[49] He tried to calculate the time of Vedas by using the position of different Nakshatras. Positions of Nakshtras were described in different Vedas.
Tilak authored "Shrimadh Bhagvad Gita Rahasya" in prison at Mandalay – the analysis of 'Karma Yoga' in the Bhagavad Gita, which is known to be gift of the Vedas and the Upanishads.

Subhas Chandra Bose

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose (23 January 1897 – 18 August 1945)^[1]^[a] was an Indian nationalist whose defiant patriotism made him a hero in India,^[2]^[b]^[3]^[c]^[4]^[d] but whose attempt during World War II to rid India of British rulewith the help of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan left an ambivalent legacy.^[5]^[e]^[6]^[f]^[2]^[g] The honorific Netaji (Hindustani: "Respected Leader"), the name granted to him in the early 1940s by the Indian soldiers of the Indische Legion and by the German and Indian officials in the Special Bureau for India in Berlin, was later used throughout India.^[7]^[h]

Bose had been a leader of the younger, radical, wing of the Indian National Congress in the late 1920s and 1930s, rising to become Congress President in 1938 and 1939.^[8]^[i] However, he was ousted from Congress leadership positions in 1939 following differences with Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress high command.^[9] He was subsequently placed under house arrest by the British before escaping from India in 1940.^[10]

Bose arrived in Germany in April 1941, where the leadership offered unexpected, if sometimes ambivalent, sympathy for the cause of India's independence, contrasting starkly with its attitudes towards other colonised peoples and ethnic communities.^[11]^[12] In November 1941, with German funds, a Free India Centre was set up in Berlin, and soon a Free India Radio, on which Bose broadcast nightly. A 3,000-strong Free India Legion, comprising Indians captured by Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps, was also formed to aid in a possible future German land invasion of India.^[13] By spring 1942, in light of Japanese victories in southeast Asia and changing German priorities, a German invasion of India became untenable, and Bose became keen to move to southeast Asia.^[14] Adolf Hitler, during his only meeting with Bose in late May 1942, suggested the same, and offered to arrange for a submarine.^[15] During this time Bose also became a father; his wife, ^[16] or companion,^[17]^[j] Emilie Schenkl, whom he had met in 1934, gave birth to a baby girl in November 1942.^[16]^[11] Identifying strongly with the Axis powers, and no longer apologetically, Bose boarded a German submarine in February 1943.^[18]^[19] In Madagascar, he was transferred to a Japanese submarine from which he disembarked in Japanese-held Sumatra in May 1943.^[18]

With Japanese support, Bose revamped the Indian National Army (INA), then composed of Indian soldiers of the British Indian army who had been captured in the Battle of Singapore.^[20] To these, after Bose's arrival, were added enlisting Indian civilians in Malaya and Singapore. The Japanese had come to support a number of puppet and provisional governments in the captured regions, such as those in Burma, the Philippines and Manchukuo. Before long the Provisional Government of Free India, presided by Bose, was formed in the Japanese-occupied Andaman and Nicobar Islands.^[20]^[21]^[k] Bose had great drive and charisma—creating popular Indian slogans, such as "Jai Hind,"—and the INA under Bose was a model of diversity by region, ethnicity, religion, and even gender. However, Bose was regarded by the Japanese as being militarily unskilled,^[22]^[l] and his military effort was short-lived. In late 1944 and early 1945 the British Indian Army first halted and then devastatingly reversed the Japanese attack on India. Almost half the Japanese forces and fully half the participating INA contingent were killed.^[23]^[m] The INA was driven down the Malay Peninsula, and surrendered with the recapture of Singapore. Bose had earlier chosen not to surrender with his forces or with the Japanese, but rather to escape to Manchuria with a view to seeking a future in the Soviet Union which he believed to be turning anti-British. He died from third degree burns received when his plane crashed in Taiwan.^[24]^[n] Some Indians, however, did not believe that the crash had occurred,^[4]^[o] with many among them, especially in Bengal, believing that Bose would return to gain India's independence.^[25]^[p]^[26]^[q]^[27]^[r]

The Indian National Congress, the main instrument of Indian nationalism, praised Bose's patriotism but distanced itself from his tactics and ideology,^[28]^[s] especially his collaboration with fascism.^[29] The British Raj, though never seriously threatened by the INA,^[30]^[t]^[31]^[u] charged 300 INA officers with treason in the INA trials, but eventually backtracked in the face both of popular sentiment and of its own end.^[32]^[v]^[29]^[2]

Biography

1897–1921: Early life

Subhas Bose, standing, extreme right, with his family of 14 siblings in Cuttack, c. 1905.
Jankinath Bose, Subhas Bose's father, was a prominent and wealthy lawyer in Cuttack.
Subhas Bose (standing, right) with friends in England, 1920.
Bose as a student in England preparing for his Indian Civil Serviceentrance examination, c. 1920.

Subhas Chandra Bose was born on 23 January 1897 (at 12.10 pm) in Cuttack, Orissa Division, Bengal Province, to Prabhavati Dutt Bose and Janakinath Bose, an advocate belonging to a Kayastha^[33]^[w] family.^[34] He was the ninth in a family of 14 children. His family was well to do.^[33]

He was admitted to the Protestant European School (presently Stewart High School) in Cuttack, like his brothers and sisters, in January 1902. He continued his studies at this school which was run by the Baptist Mission up to 1909 and then shifted to the Ravenshaw Collegiate School. Here, he was ridiculed by his fellow students because he knew very little Bengali. The day Subhas was admitted to this school, Beni Madhab Das, the headmaster, understood how brilliant and scintillating his genius was. After securing the second position in the matriculation examination in 1913, he got admitted to the Presidency College where he studied briefly.^[35] He was influenced by the teachings of Swami Vivekananda and Ramakrishna after reading their works at the age of 16. He felt that his religion was more important than his studies.^[33]

In those days, the British in Calcutta often made offensive remarks to the Indians in public places and insulted them openly. This behavior of the British as well as the outbreak of World War I began to influence his thinking.^[33]

His nationalistic temperament came to light when he was expelled for assaulting Professor Oaten(who had manhandled some Indian students^[33]) for the latter's anti-India comments. He was expelled although he appealed that he only witnessed the assault and did not actually participate in it.^[33] He later joined the Scottish Church College at the University of Calcutta and passed his B.A. in 1918 in philosophy.^[36] Bose left India in 1919 for England with a promise to his father that he would appear in the Indian Civil Services (ICS) examination. He went to study in Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and matriculated on 19 November 1919. He came fourth in the ICS examination and was selected, but he did not want to work under an alien government which would mean serving the British. As he stood on the verge of taking the plunge by resigning from the Indian Civil Service in 1921, he wrote to his elder brother Sarat Chandra Bose: "Only on the soil of sacrifice and suffering can we raise our national edifice."^[37]

He resigned from his civil service job on 23 April 1921 and returned to India.^[38]

1921–1932: Indian National Congress and prison

Bose at the inauguration of the India Society in Prague in 1926.
Bose at his residence in Calcutta in the late 1920s.
Subhas Bose, General Officer Commanding, Congress Volunteer Corps (in military uniform) with Congress president, Motilal Nehru, taking the salute. Annual meeting, Indian National Congress, December 29, 1928.
Subhas Chandra Bose with Congress Volunteers, 1929

He started the newspaper Swaraj and took charge of publicity for the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee.^[39] His mentor was Chittaranjan Das who was a spokesman for aggressive nationalism in Bengal. In the year 1923, Bose was elected the President of All India Youth Congress and also the Secretary of Bengal State Congress. He was also editor of the newspaper "Forward", founded by Chittaranjan Das.^[40] Bose worked as the CEO of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation for Das when the latter was elected mayor of Calcutta in 1924.^[41] In a roundup of nationalists in 1925, Bose was arrested and sent to prison in Mandalay, where he contracted tuberculosis.^[42]

In 1927, after being released from prison, Bose became general secretary of the Congress party and worked with Jawaharlal Nehru for independence. In late December 1928, Bose organised the Annual Meeting of the Indian National Congress in Calcutta.^[43] His most memorable role was as General Officer Commanding (GOC) Congress Volunteer Corps.^[43] Author Nirad Chaudhuri wrote about the meeting:

Bose organized a volunteer corps in uniform, its officers being even provided with steel-cut epaulettes ... his uniform was made by a firm of British tailors in Calcutta, Harman's. A telegram addressed to him as GOC was delivered to the British General in Fort William and was the subject of a good deal of malicious gossip in the (British Indian) press. Mahatma Gandhi being a sincere pacifist vowed to non-violence, did not like the strutting, clicking of boots, and saluting, and he afterwards described the Calcutta session of the Congress as a Bertram Mills circus, which caused a great deal of indignation among the Bengalis.^[43]

A little later, Bose was again arrested and jailed for civil disobedience; this time he emerged to become Mayor of Calcutta in 1930.^[42]

1933–1937: Illness, Austria, Emilie Schenkl

Bose convalescing in Bad Gastein, Austria, after surgery in early 1933.
Bose with Emilie Schenkl, in Bad Gastein, Austria, 1936.
Bose in Himalayan resort Dalhousie (June 1937), convalescing, and receiving Mirabehn, center, emissary of Gandhi; others are Dr. N. R. Dharamvir (Bose's physician) and Mrs. Dharamvir.
Bose, INC president-elect, center, in Bad Gastein, Austria, December 1937, with (left to right) A. C. N. Nambiar (Bose's second-in-command, Berlin, 1941–1945), Heidi Fulop-Miller, Schenkl, and Amiya Bose.

During the mid-1930s Bose travelled in Europe, visiting Indian students and European politicians, including Benito Mussolini. He observed party organisation and saw communism and fascism in action.^{[citation needed]} In this period, he also researched and wrote the first part of his book The Indian Struggle, which covered the country's independence movement in the years 1920–1934. Although it was published in London in 1935, the British government banned the book in the colony out of fears that it would encourage unrest.^[44]

1938–1941: Forward Bloc

Congress president Bose with Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel at the Congress annual general meeting 1938
Bose at the Lahore City Railway Station on 24 November 1938.
Bose arriving at the 1939 annual session of the Congress, where he was re-elected, but later had to resign after disagreements with Gandhi and the Congress High Command.

By 1938 Bose had become a leader of national stature and agreed to accept nomination as Congress President.He stood for unqualified Swaraj (self-governance), including the use of force against the British. This meant a confrontation with Mohandas Gandhi, who in fact opposed Bose's presidency,^[45] splitting the Indian National Congress party. Bose attempted to maintain unity, but Gandhi advised Bose to form his own cabinet. The rift also divided Bose and Nehru. Bose appeared at the 1939 Congress meeting on a stretcher. He was elected president again over Gandhi's preferred candidate Pattabhi Sitaramayya.^[46] U. Muthuramalingam Thevar strongly supported Bose in the intra-Congress dispute. Thevar mobilised all south India votes for Bose.^[47] However, due to the manoeuvrings of the Gandhi-led clique in the Congress Working Committee, Bose found himself forced to resign from the Congress presidency.^{[citation needed]}

On 22 June 1939 Bose organised the All India Forward Bloc a faction within the Indian National Congress,^[48] aimed at consolidating the political left, but its main strength was in his home state, Bengal. U Muthuramalingam Thevar, who was a staunch supporter of Bose from the beginning, joined the Forward Bloc. When Bose visited Madurai on 6 September, Thevar organised a massive rally as his reception.

When Subash Chandra Bose was heading to Madurai, on an invitation of Muthuramalinga Thevar to amass support for the Forward Bloc, he passed through Madras and spent three days at Gandhi Peak. His correspondence reveals that despite his clear dislike for British subjugation, he was deeply impressed by their methodical and systematic approach and their steadfastly disciplinarian outlook towards life. In England, he exchanged ideas on the future of India with British Labour Party leaders and political thinkers like Lord Halifax, George Lansbury, Clement Attlee, Arthur Greenwood, Harold Laski, J.B.S. Haldane, Ivor Jennings, G.D.H. Cole, Gilbert Murray and Sir Stafford Cripps.

He came to believe that an independent India needed socialist authoritarianism, on the lines of Turkey's Kemal Atatürk, for at least two decades. For politically reasons Bose was refused permission by the British authorities to meet Atatürk at Ankara. During his sojourn in England Bose tried to schedule appointments but only the Labour Party and Liberal politicians agreed to meet with him. Conservative Party officials refused to meet him or show him courtesy because he was a politician coming from a colony. In the 1930s leading figures in the Conservative Party had opposed even Dominion status for India. It was during the Labour Party government of 1945–1951, with Attlee as the Prime Minister, that India gained independence.

On the outbreak of war, Bose advocated a campaign of mass civil disobedience to protest against Viceroy Lord Linlithgow's decision to declare war on India's behalf without consulting the Congress leadership. Having failed to persuade Gandhi of the necessity of this, Bose organised mass protests in Calcutta calling for the 'Holwell Monument' commemorating the Black Hole of Calcutta, which then stood at the corner of Dalhousie Square, to be removed.^[49] He was thrown in jail by the British, but was released following a seven-day hunger strike. Bose's house in Calcutta was kept under surveillance by the CID.^[50]

1941–1943: Nazi Germany

Bose greeting Heinrich Himmler(right), the Nazi Minister of Interior, head of the SS, and the Gestapo, 1942.
Bose and Himmler and other Nazi officials in discussion over refreshments.
An official celebration in Berlin in November 1943 on the occasion of the founding of the provisional Indian National Government by Bose in Asia.^[x]
Subhas Bose meeting Adolf Hitler

Bose's arrest and subsequent release set the scene for his escape to Germany, via Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. A few days before his escape, he sought solitude and, on this pretext, avoided meeting British guards and grew a beard. Late night 16 January 1941, the night of his escape, he dressed as a Pathan (brown long coat, a black fez-type coat and broad pyjamas) to avoid being identified. Bose escaped from under British surveillance from his Elgin Road house in Calcutta about 01:25AM on 17 January 1941, accompanied by his nephew Sisir Kumar Bose in a German-made Wanderer W24 Sedan car, which would take him to Gomoh Railway Station in then state of Bihar, India. The car (Registration No. BLA 7169) was bought by Subhash Chandra Bose's elder brother Sarat Chandra Bose in 1937. The car is now on display at his Elgin Road home in Calcutta, India.^[51]^[52]^[53]^[54]

He journeyed to Peshawar with the help of the Abwehr, where he was met by Akbar Shah, Mohammed Shah and Bhagat Ram Talwar. Bose was taken to the home of Abad Khan, a trusted friend of Akbar Shah's. On 26 January 1941, Bose began his journey to reach Russia through British India's North West frontier with Afghanistan. For this reason, he enlisted the help of Mian Akbar Shah, then a Forward Bloc leader in the North-West Frontier Province. Shah had been out of India en route to the Soviet Union, and suggested a novel disguise for Bose to assume. Since Bose could not speak one word of Pashto, it would make him an easy target of Pashto speakers working for the British. For this reason, Shah suggested that Bose act deaf and dumb, and let his beard grow to mimic those of the tribesmen. Bose's guide Bhagat Ram Talwar, unknown to him, was a Soviet agent.^[53]^[54]^[55]

Supporters of the Aga Khan III helped him across the border into Afghanistan where he was met by an Abwehr unit posing as a party of road construction engineers from the Organization Todt who then aided his passage across Afghanistan via Kabul to the border with Soviet Russia. After assuming the guise of a Pashtun insurance agent ("Ziaudddin") to reach Afghanistan, Bose changed his guise and travelled to Moscow on the Italian passport of an Italian nobleman "Count Orlando Mazzotta". From Moscow, he reached Rome, and from there he travelled to Germany.^[53]^[54]^[56] Once in Russia the NKVD transported Bose to Moscow where he hoped that Russia's traditional enmity to British rule in India would result in support for his plans for a popular rising in India. However, Bose found the Soviets' response disappointing and was rapidly passed over to the German Ambassador in Moscow, Count von der Schulenburg. He had Bose flown on to Berlin in a special courier aircraft at the beginning of April where he was to receive a more favourable hearing from Joachim von Ribbentrop and the Foreign Ministry officials at the Wilhelmstrasse.^[53]^[54]^[57]

In Germany, he was attached to the Special Bureau for India under Adam von Trott zu Solz which was responsible for broadcasting on the German-sponsored Azad Hind Radio.^[58] He founded the Free India Center in Berlin, and created the Indian Legion (consisting of some 4500 soldiers) out of Indian prisoners of war who had previously fought for the British in North Africa prior to their capture by Axis forces. The Indian Legion was attached to the Wehrmacht, and later transferred to the Waffen SS. Its members swore the following allegiance to Hitler and Bose: "I swear by God this holy oath that I will obey the leader of the German race and state, Adolf Hitler, as the commander of the German armed forces in the fight for India, whose leader is Subhas Chandra Bose". This oath clearly abrogates control of the Indian legion to the German armed forces whilst stating Bose's overall leadership of India. He was also, however, prepared to envisage an invasion of India via the USSR by Nazi troops, spearheaded by the Azad Hind Legion; many have questioned his judgment here, as it seems unlikely that the Germans could have been easily persuaded to leave after such an invasion, which might also have resulted in an Axis victory in the War.^[56]

In all, 3,000 Indian prisoners of war signed up for the Free India Legion. But instead of being delighted, Bose was worried. A left-wing admirer of Russia, he was devastated when Hitler's tanks rolled across the Soviet border. Matters were worsened by the fact that the now-retreating German army would be in no position to offer him help in driving the British from India. When he met Hitler in May 1942, his suspicions were confirmed, and he came to believe that the Nazi leader was more interested in using his men to win propaganda victories than military ones. So, in February 1943, Bose turned his back on his legionnaires and slipped secretly away aboard a submarine bound for Japan. This left the men he had recruited leaderless and demoralised in Germany.^[56]^[59]

Bose lived in Berlin from 1941 until 1943. During his earlier visit to Germany in 1934, he had met Emilie Schenkl, the daughter of an Austrian veterinarian whom he married in 1937. Their daughter is Anita Bose Pfaff.^[60] Bose's party, the Forward Bloc, has contested this fact.^[61]

1943–1945: Japanese-occupied Asia

The crew of Japanese submarine I-29 after the rendezvous with German submarine U-180 300 sm southeast of Madagascar; Bose is sitting in the front row (28 April 1943).
Bose meeting Japanese prime minister Hideki Tōjō in 1943
Bose speaking in Tokyo in 1943.
Greater East Asia Conference, November 1943, Hideki Tōjō (center) with heads of Japan-supported regimes (L–R): Ba Maw (State of Burma), Zhang Jinghui (Manchukuo), Wang Jingwei(Republic of China, Nanjing), Tōjō, Wan Waithayakon (Thailand), José P. Laurel(Second Philippine Republic), Bose (Provisional Government of Free India).

In 1943, after being disillusioned that Germany could be of any help in gaining India's independence, he left for Japan. He travelled with the German submarine U-180 around the Cape of Good Hope to the southeast of Madagascar, where he was transferred to the I-29for the rest of the journey to Imperial Japan. This was the only civilian transfer between two submarines of two different navies in World War II.^[53]^[54]

The Indian National Army (INA) was the brainchild of Japanese Major (and post-war Lieutenant-General) Iwaichi Fujiwara, head the Japanese intelligence unit Fujiwara Kikan and had its origins, first in the meetings between Fujiwara and the president of the Bangkokchapter of the Indian Independence League, Pritam Singh Dhillon, and then, through Pritam Singh's network, in the recruitment by Fujiwara of a captured British Indian army captain, Mohan Singh on the western Malayan peninsula in December 1941; Fujiwara's mission was "to raise an army which would fight alongside the Japanese army."^[62]^[63] After the initial proposal by Fujiwara the Indian National Army was formed as a result of discussion between Fujiwara and Mohan Singh in the second half of December 1941, and the name chosen jointly by them in the first week of January 1942.^[64]

This was along the concept of—and with support of—what was then known as the Indian Independence League, headed by expatriate nationalist leader Rash Behari Bose. The first INA was however disbanded in December 1942 after disagreements between the Hikari Kikan and Mohan Singh, who came to believe that the Japanese High Command was using the INA as a mere pawn and propaganda tool. Mohan Singh was taken into custody and the troops returned to the prisoner-of-war camp. However, the idea of an independence army was revived with the arrival of Subhas Chandra Bose in the Far East in 1943. In July, at a meeting in Singapore, Rash Behari Bose handed over control of the organisation to Subhas Chandra Bose. Bose was able to reorganise the fledgling army and organise massive support among the expatriate Indian population in south-east Asia, who lent their support by both enlisting in the Indian National Army, as well as financially in response to Bose's calls for sacrifice for the independence cause. INA had a separate women's unit, the Rani of Jhansi Regiment (named after Rani Lakshmi Bai) headed by Capt. Lakshmi Swaminathan, which is seen as a first of its kind in Asia.^[65]^[66]

Even when faced with military reverses, Bose was able to maintain support for the Azad Hind movement. Spoken as a part of a motivational speech for the Indian National Army at a rally of Indians in Burma on 4 July 1944, Bose's most famous quote was "Give me blood, and I shall give you freedom!" In this, he urged the people of India to join him in his fight against the British Raj.^{[citation needed]} Spoken in Hindi, Bose's words are highly evocative. The troops of the INA were under the aegis of a provisional government, the Azad Hind Government, which came to produce its own currency, postage stamps, court and civil code, and was recognised by nine Axis states — Germany, Japan, Italian Social Republic, the Independent State of Croatia, Wang Jingwei regime in Nanjing, China, a provisional government of Burma, Manchukuo and Japanese-controlled Philippines. Recent researches have shown that the USSR too had diplomatic contact with the "Provisional Government of Free India". Of those countries, five were authorities established under Axis occupation. This government participated in the so-called Greater East Asia Conference as an observer in November 1943.^{[citation needed]}

The INA's first commitment was in the Japanese thrust towards Eastern Indian frontiers of Manipur. INA's special forces, the Bahadur Group, were extensively involved in operations behind enemy lines both during the diversionary attacks in Arakan, as well as the Japanese thrust towards Imphal and Kohima, along with the Burmese National Army led by Ba Maw and Aung San.^{[citation needed]}

Japanese also took possession of Andaman and Nicobar Islands in 1942 and a year later, the Provisional Government and the INA were established in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands with Lt Col. A.D. Loganathan appointed its Governor General. The islands were renamed Shaheed (Martyr) and Swaraj (Independence). However, the Japanese Navy remained in essential control of the island's administration. During Bose's only visit to the islands in early 1944, when he was carefully screened, by the Japanese authorities, from the local population who^{[clarification needed]} at that time were torturing the leader of the Indian Independence League on the Islands, Dr. Diwan Singh, who later died of his injuries, in the Cellular Jail. The islanders made several attempts to alert Bose to their plight, but apparently without success. Enraged with the lack of administrative control, Lt. Col Loganathan later relinquished his authority and returned to the Government's headquarters in Rangoon.^[67]^[68]

On the Indian mainland, an Indian Tricolour, modelled after that of the Indian National Congress, was raised for the first time in the town in Moirang, in Manipur, in north-eastern India. The towns of Kohima and Imphal were placed under siege by divisions of the Japanese, Burmese National Army and the Gandhi and Nehru Brigades of INA during the attempted invasion of India, also known as Operation U-GO. However, Commonwealth forces held both positions and then counter-attacked, in the process inflicting serious losses on the besieging forces, which were then forced to retreat back into Burma.

When Japanese funding for the army diminished, Bose was forced to raise taxes on the Indian populations of Malaysia and Singapore. When the Japanese were defeated at the battles of Kohima and Imphal, the Provisional Government's aim of establishing a base in mainland India was lost forever.^{[citation needed]} The INA was forced to pull back, along with the retreating Japanese army, and fought in key battles against the British Indian Army in its Burma campaign, notable in Meiktilla, Mandalay, Pegu, Nyangyu and Mount Popa. However, with the fall of Rangoon, Bose's government ceased to be an effective political entity.^{[citation needed]} A large proportion of the INA troops surrendered under Lt Col Loganathan. The remaining troops retreated with Bose towards Malaya or made for Thailand. Japan's surrender at the end of the war also led to the surrender of the remaining elements of the Indian National Army. The INA prisoners were then repatriated to India and some tried for treason.

On 6 July 1944, in a speech broadcast by the Azad Hind Radio from Singapore, Bose addressed Mahatma Gandhi as the "Father of the Nation" and asked for his blessings and good wishes for the war he was fighting. This was the first time that Gandhi was referred to by this appellation.^[69]

18 August 1945: Death

The last aeroplane journeys of Subhas Chandra Bose.
The Mitsubishi Ki-21 twin-engine heavy bomber that Bose boarded at Saigon airport around 2 PM on 17 August 1945.
Clipping from Japanese newspaper, published on 23 August 1945.
A memorial to Subhas Chandra Bose in the Renkōji Temple, Tokyo. Bose's ashes are stored in the temple in a golden pagoda.

In the consensus of scholarly opinion, Subhas Chandra Bose's death occurred from third-degree burns on 18 August 1945 after his overloaded Japanese plane crashed in Japanese-ruled Formosa (now Taiwan).^[1]^[4] However, many among his supporters, especially in Bengal, refused at the time, and have refused since, to believe either the fact or the circumstances of his death.^[1]^[25]^[26] Conspiracy theories appeared within hours of his death and have thereafter had a long shelf life,^[1]^[y] keeping alive various martial myths about Bose.^[2]

In Taihoku, at around 2:30 PM as the bomber with Bose on board was leaving the standard path taken by aircraft during take-off, the passengers inside heard a loud sound, similar to an engine backfiring.^[70]^[71] The mechanics on the tarmac saw something fall out of the plane.^[72] It was the portside engine, or a part of it, and the propeller.^[72]^[70] The plane swung wildly to the right and plummeted, crashing, breaking into two, and exploding into flames.^[72]^[70] Inside, the chief pilot, copilot and Lieutenant-General Tsunamasa Shidei, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Japanese Kwantung Army, who was to have made the negotiations for Bose with the Soviet army in Manchuria,^[73] were instantly killed.^[72]^[74] Bose's assistant Habibur Rahman was stunned, passing out briefly, and Bose, although conscious and not fatally hurt, was soaked in gasoline.^[72] When Rahman came to, he and Bose attempted to leave by the rear door, but found it blocked by the luggage.^[74] They then decided to run through the flames and exit from the front.^[74] The ground staff, now approaching the plane, saw two people staggering towards them, one of whom had become a human torch.^[72] The human torch turned out to be Bose, whose gasoline-soaked clothes had instantly ignited.^[74] Rahman and a few others managed to smother the flames, but also noticed that Bose's face and head appeared badly burned.^[74] According to Joyce Chapman Lebra, "A truck which served as ambulance rushed Bose and the other passengers to the Nanmon Military Hospital south of Taihoku."^[72] The airport personnel called Dr. Taneyoshi Yoshimi, the surgeon-in-charge at the hospital at around 3 PM.^[74] Bose was conscious and mostly coherent when they reached the hospital, and for some time thereafter.^[75] Bose was naked, except for a blanket wrapped around him, and Dr. Yoshimi immediately saw evidence of third-degree burns on many parts of the body, especially on his chest, doubting very much that he would live.^[75] Dr. Yoshimi promptly began to treat Bose and was assisted by Dr. Tsuruta.^[75] According to historian Leonard A. Gordon, who interviewed all the hospital personnel later,

A disinfectant, Rivamol, was put over most of his body and then a white ointment was applied and he was bandaged over most of his body. Dr. Yoshimi gave Bose four injections of Vita Camphor and two of Digitamine for his weakened heart. These were given about every 30 minutes. Since his body had lost fluids quickly upon being burnt, he was also given Ringer solution intravenously. A third doctor, Dr. Ishii gave him a blood transfusion. An orderly, Kazuo Mitsui, an army private, was in the room and several nurses were also assisting. Bose still had a clear head which Dr. Yoshimi found remarkable for someone with such severe injuries.^[76]

Soon, in spite of the treatment, Bose went into a coma.^[76]^[72] A few hours later, between 9 and 10 PM (local time) on Saturday 18 August 1945, Subhas Chandra Bose, aged 48, was dead.^[76]^[72]

Bose's body was cremated in the main Taihoku crematorium two days later, 20 August 1945.^[77] On 23 August 1945, the Japanese news agency Do Trzei announced the death of Bose and Shidea.^[72] On 7 September a Japanese officer, Lieutenant Tatsuo Hayashida, carried Bose's ashes to Tokyo, and the following morning they were handed to the president of the Tokyo Indian Independence League, Rama Murti.^[78] On 14 September a memorial service was held for Bose in Tokyo and a few days later the ashes were turned over to the priest of the Renkōji Temple of Nichiren Buddhism in Tokyo.^[79]^[80] There they have remained ever since.^[80]

Among the INA personnel, there was widespread disbelief, shock, and trauma. Most affected were the young Tamil Indians from Malaya and Singapore, both men and women, who comprised the bulk of the civilians who had enlisted in the INA.^[29] The professional soldiers in the INA, most of whom were Punjabis, faced an uncertain future, with many fatalistically expecting reprisals from the British.^[29] In India the Indian National Congress's official line was succinctly expressed in a letter Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi wrote to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur.^[29] Said Gandhi, "Subhas Bose has died well. He was undoubtedly a patriot, though misguided."^[29] Many congressmen had not forgiven Bose for quarrelling with Gandhi and for collaborating with what they considered was Japanese fascism. The Indian soldiers in the British Indian army, some two and a half million of whom had fought during the Second World War, were conflicted about the INA. Some saw the INA as traitors and wanted them punished; others felt more sympathetic. The British Raj, though never seriously threatened by the INA, tried 300 INA officers for treason in the INA trials, but eventually backtracked.^[29]

Legacy

On 23 August 2007, Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzō Abe visited the Subhas Chandra Bose memorial hall in Kolkata.^[81]^[82] Abe said to Bose's family "The Japanese are deeply moved by Bose's strong will to have led the Indian independence movement from British rule. Netaji is a much respected name in Japan.^[81]^[82]

The following words are inscribed on a brass shield in front of the chair.

"Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in order to free India from the shackles of British imperialism organized the Azad Hind Government from outside the country on October 21, 1943. Netaji set up the Provisional Government of Independent India (Azad Hind) and transferred its headquarter at Rangoon on January 7, 1944. On the 5th April, 1944, the "Azad Hind Bank" was inaugurated at Rangoon. It was on this occasion that Netaji used this chair for the first time. Later the chair was kept at the residence of Netaji at 51, University Avenue, Rangoon, where the office of the Azad Hind Government was also housed. Afterwards,at the time of leaving Burma, the Britishers handed over the chair to the family of Mr.A.T.Ahuja, the well known business man of Rangoon. The chair was officially handed over to the Government of India in January 1979. It was brought to Calcutta on the 17th July, 1980. It has now been ceremonially installed at the Red Fort on July 7, 1981."

Ideology

Bose advocated complete unconditional independence for India, whereas the All-India Congress Committee wanted it in phases, through Dominion status. Finally at the historic Lahore Congress convention, the Congress adopted Purna Swaraj (complete independence) as its motto. Gandhi was given rousing receptions wherever he went after Gandhi-Irwin pact. Subhas Chandra Bose, travelling with Gandhi in these endeavours, later wrote that the great enthusiasm he saw among the people enthused him tremendously and that he doubted if any other leader anywhere in the world received such a reception as Gandhi did during these travels across the country. He was imprisoned and expelled from India. Defying the ban, he came back to India and was imprisoned again.^{[citation needed]}

Bose was elected president of the Indian National Congress for two consecutive terms, but had to resign from the post following ideological conflicts with Mohandas K. Gandhi and after openly attacking the Congress' foreign and internal policies. Bose believed that Gandhi's tactics of non-violence would never be sufficient to secure India's independence, and advocated violent resistance. He established a separate political party, the All India Forward Bloc and continued to call for the full and immediate independence of India from British rule. He was imprisoned by the British authorities eleven times.

His stance did not change with the outbreak of the Second World War, which he saw as an opportunity to take advantage of British weakness. At the outset of the war, he left India, travelling to the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, seeking an alliance with each of them to attack the British government in India. With Imperial Japanese assistance, he re-organised and later led the Azad Hind Fauj or Indian National Army (INA), formed with Indian prisoners-of-war and plantation workers from British Malaya, Singapore, and other parts of Southeast Asia, against British forces. With Japanese monetary, political, diplomatic and military assistance, he formed the Azad Hind Government in exile, and regrouped and led the Indian National Army in failed military campaigns against the allies at Imphal and in Burma.

His political views and the alliances he made with Nazi and other militarist regimes at war with Britain have been the cause of arguments among historians and politicians, with some accusing him of fascist sympathies, while others in India have been more sympathetic towards the realpolitik that guided his social and political choices.

Subhas Chandra Bose believed that the Bhagavad Gita was a great source of inspiration for the struggle against the British.^[83] Swami Vivekananda's teachings on universalism, his nationalist thoughts and his emphasis on social service and reform had all inspired Subhas Chandra Bose from his very young days. The fresh interpretation of the India's ancient scriptures had appealed immensely to him.^[84] Many scholars believe that Hindu spirituality formed the essential part of his political and social thought throughout his adult life, although there was no sense of bigotry or orthodoxy in it.^[85] Subhas who called himself a socialist, believed that socialism in India owed its origins to Swami Vivekananda.^[86] As historian Leonard Gordon explains "Inner religious explorations continued to be a part of his adult life. This set him apart from the slowly growing number of atheistic socialists and communists who dotted the Indian landscape.".^[87]

Bose first expressed his preference for "a synthesis of what modern Europe calls socialism and fascism" in a 1930 speech in Calcutta.^[88] Bose later criticized Nehru's 1933 statement that there is "no middle road" between communism and fascism, describing it as "fundamentally wrong". Bose believed communism would not gain ground in India due to its rejection of nationalism and religion and suggested a "synthesis between communism and fascism" could take hold instead.^[89] In 1944, Bose similarly stated, "Our philosophy should be a synthesis between National Socialism and communism."^[90]

Bose's correspondence (prior to 1939) reflects his deep disapproval of the racist practices of, and annulment of democratic institutions in Nazi Germany: "Today I regret that I have to return to India with the conviction that the new nationalism of Germany is not only narrow and selfish but arrogant".^[91] However, he expressed admiration for the authoritarian methods (though not the racial ideologies) which he saw in Italy and Germany during the 1930s, and thought they could be used in building an independent India.^[49]

Bose had clearly expressed his belief that democracy was the best option for India.^[92] The pro-Bose thinkers believe that his authoritarian control of the Azad Hind was based on political pragmatism and a post-colonial doctrine rather than any anti-democratic belief.^{[citation needed]} However, during the war (and possibly as early as the 1930s), Bose seems to have decided that no democratic system could be adequate to overcome India's poverty and social inequalities, and he wrote that a socialist state similar to that of Soviet Russia (which he had also seen and admired) would be needed for the process of national re-building.^[z]^[93] Accordingly, some suggest that Bose's alliance with the Axis during the war was based on more than just pragmatism, and that Bose was a militant nationalist, though not a Nazi nor a Fascist, for he supported empowerment of women, secularism and other liberal ideas; alternatively, others consider he might have been using populist methods of mobilisation common to many post-colonial leaders.^[49]

His most famous quote was "Give me blood and I will give you freedom".^{[citation needed]} Another famous quote was Dilli Chalo ("On to Delhi)!" This was the call he used to give the INA armies to motivate them. Jai Hind, or, "Glory to India!" was another slogan used by him and later adopted by the Government of India and the Indian Armed Forces. Another slogan coined by him was "Ittehad, Etemad, Qurbani" (Urdu for "Unity, Agreement, Sacrifice"). INA also used the slogan Inquilab Zindabad, which was coined by Maulana Hasrat Mohani.^[94]

In popular media

In 2004, Shyam Benegal directed the biographical film, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero depicting his life in Nazi Germany (1941–1943), in Japanese-occupied Asia (1943–1945) and the events leading to the formation of Azad Hind Fauj.^[95] The film received critical acclaim at the BFI London Film Festival, and has garnered the National Film Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration, and the National Film Award for Best Production Design for that year.^[96]^[97]
In 2017, ALTBalaji and BIG Synergy Media, released a 9-episode web series, Bose: Dead/Alive, which is a dramatised version of the book India's Biggest Cover-up written by Anuj Dhar, which starred Bollywood actor Rajkummar Rao as Subhas Chandra Bose and Anna Ador as Emilie Schenkl. The series was praised by both audience and critics, for its plot, performance and production design.^[98]

References

Notes

Jump up^ "If all else failed (Bose) wanted to become a prisoner of the Soviets: 'They are the only ones who will resist the British. My fate is with them. But as the Japanese plane took off from Taipei airport its engines faltered and then failed. Bose was badly burned in the crash. According to several witnesses, he died on 18 August in a Japanese military hospital, talking to the very last of India's freedom. British and Indian commissions later established convincingly that Bose had died in Taiwan. These were legendary and apocalyptic times, however. Having witnessed the first Indian leader to fight against the British since the great mutiny of 1857, many in both Southeast Asia and India refused to accept the loss of their hero. Rumours that Bose had survived and was waiting to come out of hiding and begin the final struggle for independence were rampant by the end of 1945.^[1]
Jump up^ "His romantic saga, coupled with his defiant nationalism, has made Bose a near-mythic figure, not only in his native Bengal, but across India."^[2]
Jump up^ "Bose's heroic endeavor still fires the imagination of many of his countrymen. But like a meteor which enters the earth's atmosphere, he burned brightly on the horizon for a brief moment only."^[3]
Jump up^ "Subhas Bose might have been a renegade leader who had challenged the authority of the Congress leadership and their principles. But in death he was a martyred patriot whose memory could be an ideal tool for political mobilization."^[4]
Jump up^ "The most troubling aspect of Bose's presence in Nazi Germany is not military or political but rather ethical. His alliance with the most genocidal regime in history poses serious dilemmas precisely because of his popularity and his having made a lifelong career of fighting the 'good cause'. How did a man who started his political career at the feet of Gandhi end up with Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo? Even in the case of Mussolini and Tojo, the gravity of the dilemma pales in comparison to that posed by his association with Hitler and the Nazi leadership. The most disturbing issue, all too often ignored, is that in the many articles, minutes, memorandums, telegrams, letters, plans, and broadcasts Bose left behind in Germany, he did not express the slightest concern or sympathy for the millions who died in the concentration camps. Not one of his Berlin wartime associates or colleagues ever quotes him expressing any indignation. Not even when the horrors of Auschwitz and its satellite camps were exposed to the world upon being liberated by Soviet troops in early 1945, revealing publicly for the first time the genocidal nature of the Nazi regime, did Bose react."^[5]
Jump up^ "To many (Congress leaders), Bose's programme resembled that of the Japanese fascists, who were in the process of losing their gamble to achieve Asian ascendancy through war. Nevertheless, the success of his soldiers in Burma had stirred as much patriotic sentiment among Indians as the sacrifices of imprisoned Congress leaders.^[6]
Jump up^ "Marginalized within Congress and a target for British surveillance, Bose chose to embrace the fascist powers as allies against the British and fled India, first to Hitler's Germany, then, on a German submarine, to a Japanese-occupied Singapore. The force that he put together ... known as the Indian National Army (INA) and thus claiming to represent free India, saw action against the British in Burma but accomplished little toward the goal of a march on Delhi. ... Bose himself died in an aeroplane crash trying to reach Japanese-occupied territory in the last months of the war. ... It is this heroic, martial myth that is today remembered, rather than Bose's wartime vision of a free India under the authoritarian rule of someone like himself."^[2]
Jump up^ "Another small, but immediate, issue for the civilians in Berlin and the soldiers in training was how to address Subhas Bose. Vyas has given his view of how the term was adopted: 'one of our [soldier] boys came forward with "Hamare Neta". We improved upon it: "Netaji"... It must be mentioned, that Subhas Bose strongly disapproved of it. He began to yield only when he saw our military group ... firmly went on calling him "Netaji"' (Alexander) Werth also mentioned adoption of 'Netaji' and observed accurately, that it '... combined a sense both of affection and honour ...' It was not meant to echo 'Fuehrer' or 'Duce', but to give Subhas Bose a special Indian form of reverence and this term has been universally adopted by Indians everywhere in speaking about him."^[7]
Jump up^ "Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Bose were among those who, impatient with Gandhi's programmes and methods, looked upon socialism as an alternative for nationalistic policies capable of meeting the country's economic and social needs, as well as a link to potential international support."^[8]
Jump up^ "Although we must take Emilie Schenkl at her word (about her secret marriage to Bose in 1937), there are a few nagging doubts about an actual marriage ceremony because there is no document that I have seen and no testimony by any other person. ... Other biographers have written that Bose and Miss Schenkl were married in 1942, while Krishna Bose, implying 1941, leaves the date ambiguous. The strangest and most confusing testimony comes from A. C. N. Nambiar, who was with the couple in Badgastein briefly in 1937, and was with them in Berlin during the war as second-in-command to Bose. In an answer to my question about the marriage, he wrote to me in 1978: 'I cannot state anything definite about the marriage of Bose referred to by you, since I came to know of it only a good while after the end of the last world war ... I can imagine the marriage having been a very informal one ...'... So what are we left with? ... We know they had a close passionate relationship and that they had a child, Anita, born November 29, 1942, in Vienna. ... And we have Emilie Schenkl's testimony that they were married secretly in 1937. Whatever the precise dates, the most important thing is the relationship."^[17]
Jump up^ "Tojo turned over all his Indian POWs to Bose's command, and in October 1943 Bose announced the creation of a Provisional Government of Azad ("Free") India, of which he became head of state, prime minister, minister of war, and minister of foreign affairs. Some two million Indians were living in Southeast Asia when the Japanese seized control of that region, and these emigrees were the first "citizens" of that government, founded under the "protection" of Japan and headquartered on the "liberated" Andaman Islands. Bose declared war on the United States and Great Britain the day after his government was established. In January 1944 he moved his provisional capital to Rangoon and started his Indian National Army on their march north to the battle cry of the Meerut mutineers: "Chalo Delhi!"^[21]
Jump up^ "At the same time that the Japanese appreciated the firmness with which Bose's forces continued to fight, they were endlessly exasperated with him. A number of Japanese officers, even those like Fujiwara, who were devoted to the Indian cause, saw Bose as a military incompetent as well as an unrealistic and stubborn man who saw only his own needs and problems and could not see the larger picture of the war as the Japanese had to."^[22]
Jump up^ "Gracey consoled himself that Bose's Indian National Army had also been in action against his Indians and Gurkhas but had been roughly treated and almost annihilated; when the survivors tried to surrender, they tended to fall foul of the Gurkhas' dreaded kukri."^[23]
Jump up^ "The good news Wavell reported was that the RAF had just recently flown enough of its planes into Manipur's capital of Imphal to smash Netaji ("Leader") Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army (INA) that had advanced to its outskirts before the monsoon began. Bose's INA consisted of about 20,000 of the British Indian soldiers captured by the Japanese in Singapore, who had volunteered to serve under Netaji Bose when he offered them "Freedom" if they were willing to risk their "Blood" to gain Indian independence a year earlier. The British considered Bose and his "army of traitors" no better than their Japanese sponsors, but to most of Bengal's 50 million Indians, Bose was a great national hero and potential "Liberator." The INA was stopped before entering Bengal, first by monsoon rains and then by the RAF, and forced to retreat, back through Burma and down its coast to the Malay peninsula. In May 1945, Bose would fly out of Saigon on an overloaded Japanese plane, headed for Taiwan, which crash-landed and burned. Bose suffered third-degree burns and died in the hospital on Formosa."^[24]
Jump up^ "The retreat was even more devastating, finally ending the dream of gaining Indian independence through military campaign. But Bose still remained optimistic, thought of regrouping after the Japanese surrender, contemplated seeking help from Soviet Russia. The Japanese agreed to provide him transport up to Manchuria from where he could travel to Russia. But on his way, on 18 August 1945 at Taihoku airport in Taiwan, he died in an air crash, which many Indians still believe never happened."^[4]
Jump up^ "There are still some in India today who believe that Bose remained alive and in Soviet custody, a once and future king of Indian independence. The legend of 'Netaii' Bose's survival helped bind together the defeated INA. In Bengal it became an assurance of the province's supreme importance in the liberation of the motherland. It sustained the morale of many across India and Southeast Asia who deplored the return of British power or felt alienated from the political settlement finally achieved by Gandhi and Nehru.^[25]
Jump up^ "On 21 March 1944, Subhas Bose and advanced units of the INA crossed the borders of India, entering Manipur, and by May they had advanced to the outskirts of that state's capital, Imphal. That was the closest Bose came to Bengal, where millions of his devoted followers awaited his army's "liberation." The British garrison at Imphal and its air arm withstood Bose's much larger force long enough for the monsoon rains to defer all possibility of warfare in that jungle region for the three months the British so desperately needed to strengthen their eastern wing. Bose had promised his men freedom in exchange for their blood, but the tide of battle turned against them after the 1944 rains, and in May 1945 the INA surrendered in Rangoon. Bose escaped on the last Japanese plane to leave Saigon, but he died in Formosa after a crash landing there in August. By that time, however, his death had been falsely reported so many times that a myth soon emerged in Bengal that Netaji Subhas Chandra was alive—raising another army in China or Tibet or the Soviet Union—and would return with it to "liberate" India.^[26]
Jump up^ "Subhas Bose was dead, killed in 1945 in a plane crash in the Far East, even though many of his devotees waited—as Barbarossa's disciples had done in another time and in another country—for their hero's second coming."^[27]
Jump up^ "The thrust of Sarkar's thought, like that of Chittaranjan Das and Subhas Bose, was to challenge the idea that 'the average Indian is indifferent to life', as R. K. Kumaria put it. India once possessed an energised, Machiavellian political culture. All it needed was a hero (rather than a Gandhi-style saint) to revive the culture and steer India to life and freedom through violent contentions of world forces (vishwa shakti) represented in imperialism, fascism and socialism."^[28]
Jump up^ "The (Japanese) Fifteenth Army, commanded by ... Maj.-General Mutuguchi Renya consisted of three experienced infantry divisions — 15th, 31st and 33rd — totalling 100,000 combat troops, with the 7,000 strong 1st Indian National Army (INA) Division in support. It was hoped the latter would subvert the Indian Army's loyalty and precipitate a popular rising in British India, but in reality the campaign revealed that it was largely a paper tiger."^[30]
Jump up^ "The real fault, however, must attach to the Japanese commander-in-chief Kawabe. Dithering, ... prostrated with amoebic dysentery, he periodically reasoned that he must cancel Operation U-Go in its entirety, but every time he summoned the courage to do so, a cable would arrive from Tokyo stressing the paramount necessity of victory in Burma, to compensate for the disasters in the Pacific. ... Even more incredibly, he still hoped for great things from Bose and the INA, despite all the evidence that both were busted flushes."^[31]
Jump up^ "The claim is even made that without the Japanese-influenced 'Indian National Army' under Subhas Chandra Bose, India would not have achieved independence in 1947; though those who make claim seem unaware of the mood of the British people in 1945 and of the attitude of the newly-elected Labour government to the Indian question."^[32]
Jump up^ "Janakinath was a lawyer of a Kayastha family and was wealthy enough to educate his children well.He recalls being laughed at by his fellow studentsbecause he knew so little Bengali. At the age of fifteen, he first read the works of Swami Vivekananda and found a goal for his life-spiritual salvation foroneself and service to humanity.^[33]
Jump up^ A photograph from the German Federal Archives, whose caption says, "The ceremony, which took place on the occasion of the founding of the Indian National Provisional Government of Free India Centre at the Hotel Kaiserhof in Berlin (16 November 1943), turned out to be a flaming indictment of the British war hunger in India. In addition to numerous leading German personalities, the Japanese ambassador, General Oshima and the Republican-fascist Italy, his excellence Anfuso, attended the event. Shown here is the Secretary of State in the Foreign Office, Keppler, bringing greetings and wishes of the Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop."
Jump up^ "Rumours that Bose had survived and was waiting to come out of hiding and begin the final struggle for independence were rampant by the end of 1945."^[1]
Jump up^ "The Fundamental Problems of India" (An address to the Faculty and students of Tokyo University, November 1944): "You cannot have a so-called democratic system, if that system has to put through economic reforms on a socialistic basis. Therefore we must have a political system – a State – of an authoritarian character. We have had some experience of democratic institutions in India and we have also studied the working of democratic institutions in countries like France, England and United States of America. And we have come to the conclusion that with a democratic system we cannot solve the problems of Free India. Therefore, modern progressive thought in India is in favour of a State of an authoritarian character"^[93]

Citations

^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Bayly & Harper 2007, p. 2.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Metcalf & Metcalf 2012, p. 210.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Kulke & Rothermund 2004, p. 311.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Bandyopādhyāẏa 2004, p. 427.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Hayes 2011, p. 165.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Stein 2010, pp. 345.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Gordon 1990, pp. 459–460.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Stein 2010, pp. 305,325.
Jump up^ Low 2002, p. 297.
Jump up^ Low 2002, p. 313.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Hayes 2011, pp. 65–67.
Jump up^ Hayes 2011, p. 152.
Jump up^ Hayes 2011, p. 76.
Jump up^ Hayes 2011, pp. 87–88.
Jump up^ Hayes 2011, pp. 114–116.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Hayes 2011, p. 15.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Gordon 1990, pp. 344–345.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Hayes 2011, pp. 141–143.
Jump up^ Bose 2005, p. 255.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Low 1993, pp. 31–31.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Wolpert 2000, p. 339.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Gordon 1990, p. 517.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b McLynn 2011, pp. 295–296.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Wolpert 2009, p. 69.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c Bayly & Harper 2007, p. 22.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c Wolpert 2000, pp. 339–340.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Chatterji 2007, p. 278.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Bayly 2012, p. 283.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Bayly & Harper 2007, p. 21.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Moreman 2013, pp. 124–125.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b McLynn 2011, p. 429.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Allen 2012, p. 179.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Lebra 2008a, pp. 102—103.
Jump up^ Getz 2002, p. 7.
Jump up^ Jesudasen 2006, p. 57.
Jump up^ Patil 1988.
Jump up^ Mercado 2002, p. 73.
Jump up^ Vas 2008, p. 27.
Jump up^ Toye 2007.
Jump up^ Chakraborty & Bhaṭṭācārya 1989.
Jump up^ Vas 2008, p. 32.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Vipul 2009, p. 116.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c Gordon 1990, p. 190.
Jump up^ Bose & Bose 1997.
Jump up^ Josh 1992.
Jump up^ Chattopadhyay 1989.
Jump up^ Phadnis 2009, p. 185.
Jump up^ Padhy 2011, p. 234.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c Sen 1999.
Jump up^ Durga Das Pvt. Ltd 1985.
Jump up^ Loiwal 2017a.
Jump up^ Loiwal 2017b.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Talwar 1976.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Markandeya 1990.
Jump up^ James 1997, p. 554.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c Thomson 2004.
Jump up^ Majumdar 1997, pp. 10–14.
Jump up^ Encyclopædia Britannica 2016.
Jump up^ Hauner 1981, pp. 28–29.
Jump up^ Ramakrishnan 2001.
Jump up^ Bhattacharjee 2012.
Jump up^ Fay 1995, pp. 74–75.
Jump up^ Lebra 2008a, pp. 21–23.
Jump up^ Lebra 2008a, pp. 24–25.
Jump up^ Bose 2002.
Jump up^ Tarique.
Jump up^ Singh, p. 249.
Jump up^ Bayly & Harper 2007, p. 325.
Jump up^ "Father of Our Nation" (Address to Mahatma Gandhi over the Rangoon Radio on 6 July 1944) Bose & Bose 1997a, pp. 301–2
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c Gordon 1990, p. 540.
Jump up^ Fay 1995, p. 384.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j Lebra 2008a, pp. 196–197.
Jump up^ Lebra 2008a, pp. 195–196.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Gordon 1990, p. 541.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c Gordon 1990, pp. 541–542.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b ^c Gordon 1990, p. 542.
Jump up^ Gordon 1990, p. 543.
Jump up^ Gordon 1990, p. 544–545.
Jump up^ Lebra 2008a, pp. 197–198.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Gordon 1990, p. 545.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Roche 2007.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b The Hindu 2007.
Jump up^ Narangoa & Cribb 2003.
Jump up^ Bose et al. 1996.
Jump up^ Chaudhuri 1987.
Jump up^ Bhuyan 2003.
Jump up^ Gordon 1990.
Jump up^ Pasricha 2008, pp. 64–65.
Jump up^ Bose 2011, p. 98.
Jump up^ Shanker Kapoor 2017.
Jump up^ Bose to Dr. Thierfelder of the Deutsche Academie, Kurhaus Hochland, Badgastein, 25 March 1936 Bose & Bose 1997a, p. 155
Jump up^ Roy 2004, pp. 7–8.
^ Jump up to:^a ^b Bose & Bose 1997a, pp. 319–20.
Jump up^ Roy 1996, pp. 51ff.
Jump up^ Salam 2005.
Jump up^ Pandohar 2005.
Jump up^ The Guardian 2005.
Jump up^ Gauri 2017.

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Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel


1st Deputy Prime Minister of India
In office 15 August 1947 – 15 December 1950
Monarch	George VI
Governor General	C. Rajagopalachari
Prime Minister	Jawaharlal Nehru
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Morarji Desai
Minister of Home Affairs
In office 15 August 1947 – 15 December 1950
Prime Minister	Jawaharlal Nehru
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	C. Rajagopalachari
1st Commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces
In office 15 August 1947 – 15 December 1950
Monarch	George VI
Governor General	C. Rajagopalachari
Prime Minister	Jawaharlal Nehru
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Position abolished (merged to the President of India)
Personal details
Born	Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel 31 October 1875 Nadiad, Bombay Presidency, British India (now in Gujarat, India)
Died	15 December 1950 (aged 75) Bombay, Bombay State, India (now Mumbai, Maharashtra, India)
Cause of death	Heart attack
Political party	Indian National Congress
Spouse(s)	Jhaverba Patel
Children	Maniben Patel Dahyabhai Patel
Mother	Ladba
Father	Jhaverbhai Patel
Alma mater	Inns of Court
Profession	Barrister Politician Activist Freedom Fighter
Awards	Bharat Ratna (1991) (posthumously)

Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Born	23 July 1856 Ratnagiri, Bombay State, British India (present-day Maharashtra, India)^[1]
Died	1 August 1920 (aged 64) Bombay, British India (present-day Maharashtra, India)
Occupation	Author, politician, freedom fighter
Political party	Indian National Congress
Movement	Indian Independence movement
Children	Sridhar Balwant Tilak^[2]

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose


Head of State and Government (Prime Minister) of the Provisional Government of Free India(Undivided India) (Ārzī Hukūmat-e-Āzād Hind)
In office 21 October 1943 – 18 August 1945
Preceded by	Office created
Succeeded by	Office abolished
President of the Indian National Congress
In office 1938 – 1939
Preceded by	Jawaharlal Nehru
Succeeded by	Rajendra Prasad
Personal details
Born	Subhas Chandra Bose 23 January 1897 Cuttack, British India
Died	18 August 1945 (aged 48) Taihoku, Japanese Taiwan (present-day Taipei)
Political party	Indian National Congress Forward Bloc (1939–1940)
Spouse(s)	Emilie Schenkl
Children	Anita Bose Pfaff
Mother	Prabhavati Dutt
Father	Janakinath Bose
Education	Ravenshaw Collegiate Scottish Church College
Alma mater	University of Calcutta Fitzwilliam College
Known for	Indian nationalism
Signature

indian freedom struggle real leaders who are not famous as the others part 1

Vallabhbhai Patel

Contents

Early life[edit]

Fight for self-rule[edit]

Satyagraha in Gujarat[edit]

Quit India[edit]

Integration after Independence and role of Gandhi[edit]

Cabinet mission and partition[edit]

Political integration of India[edit]

Leading India[edit]

Father of modern All India Services[edit]

Gandhi's death and relations with Nehru[edit]

Death[edit]

Reception[edit]

Nehru and Patel[edit]

Legacy[edit]

Rashtriya Ekta Diwas[edit]

Statue of unity[edit]

Other institutions and monuments[edit]

Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Contents

Early life[edit]

Political career[edit]

Indian National Congress[edit]

Sedition Charges[edit]

Imprisonment in Mandalay[edit]

Life after Mandalay[edit]

All India Home Rule League[edit]

Religio-Political Views[edit]

Social views[edit]

Women's issues[edit]

Untouchability[edit]

Esteem for Swami Vivekananda[edit]

Conflicts with Shahu over caste issues[edit]

Social contributions and legacy[edit]

Books[edit]

Subhas Chandra Bose

Contents

Biography

1897–1921: Early life

1921–1932: Indian National Congress and prison

1933–1937: Illness, Austria, Emilie Schenkl

1938–1941: Forward Bloc

1941–1943: Nazi Germany

1943–1945: Japanese-occupied Asia

18 August 1945: Death

Legacy

Ideology

In popular media

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

Further reading

Comments

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