The curious battle for Vallabhbhai Patel
There is little resemblance between that Patel and the 182 metre one being constructed on an island in Gujarat currently
Sometime on the eve of Independence, the Congress high command was holding one of its innumerable sessions. Mohandas Gandhi was presiding. Among other things, on agenda was the issue of deciding the next leader of the party. In a casual fashion, Gandhi informed Jawaharlal Nehru that a majority of the Pradesh Congress Committees were in favour of Vallabhbhai Patel. There was a moment of silence in which Nehru did not say anything. Then, Gandhi passed a piece of paper to Patel who, without batting an eyelid, signed it. With that act, he signed away his chance of becoming Prime Minister of India, acquiescing to Nehru’s enthronement. No questions asked.
There is little resemblance between that Patel and the 182 metre one being constructed on an island in Gujarat currently. One was a historical figure; the other is a mythical being, raised for purely political purposes. Usually, appropriation of historical figures is the tactic of weak political leaders who are unsure of their standing. Contemporary India is replete with this sort of “gold dusting". From that perspective, what is being seen in Gujarat is doubly surprising. The entire exercise is being done by a leader who by most measures should not be insecure: Narendra Modi. Perhaps there is another explanation at hand?
Turn the clock back to the period 1948-1950. By that time Gandhi, the one person who united the temperamentally very different Nehru and Patel, had passed away. With that began the steady disempowering of the Patel faction in the Congress. By 1950, the Sardar had gone and so had most of his like-minded colleagues. By 1962, the last formidable “Patelite", Purushottam Das Tandon, too, had gone. By that time, the ascendancy of Nehru and his vision—including the disastrous infatuation with economic planning—was complete. Patel has, since then, been relegated to the pages of history.
Patel is not the only leader who has been relegated thus. Since 1970 nationalist icons such as Subhas Chandra Bose, Rajendra Prasad and Maulana Azad have been aggressively relegated by the Congress party’s leadership. And here one is not even talking of leaders like Madan Mohan Malviya who barely exist in memory. The Congress has no reason to complain about how Patel is being appropriated by Modi.
So why is he being remembered now and why by Modi, of all the people? It is true that not many citizens will be aware of the details of Patel’s career. But they do remember him for one thing: his tremendous resolve in unifying India into a nation from a mere collection of geographically adjacent states. And that memory has contemporary resonance.
In the last 10 years of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s run, the last word than can be associated with it is resolve. A significant number of Indians—especially those living in urban areas, who are educated and who are at the receiving end of India’s economic woes—seek a government that takes decisive measures in solving the country’s problems. Modi, the shrewd tactician that he is, knows this very well.
In a democracy, such appropriation approaches the limits of what is politically healthy. And coming at the hands of a leader like Narendra Modi, who has carefully cultivated the image of being decisive, it is doubly unjustified. It also leaves open a nagging question that if this image building exercise lacks substance. He has, in the recent past, built his credentials on development and growth; his reliance on symbols is thus questionable. But these simple explanations do not explain much except saying “not good". The Congress party has done much to create the vacuum—historical and contemporary—that has enabled this turn of events. The agreement on part of a significant section of citizens shows that India and Indians long for something they have not seen for a decade, a decisive government. It is interesting that a historical figure should bear the burden of these expectations.
Is Narendra Modi only making use of a vacuum created by the Congress party? Tell us at views@livemint.com
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