Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

Biography

Vallabhbhai Patel was born in Nadiad, Gujarat, in 1875 and grew up in the Gujarati countryside. He finished school late, studied law largely on his own, and built a successful practice as a pleader in Godhra, Borsad and Anand. In his mid-thirties he went to London to train as a barrister at the Middle Temple, then returned to practise in Ahmedabad.

Drawn to Mahatma Gandhi, Patel became one of his first lieutenants. He organised the peasants of Kheda in a no-tax campaign in 1918 and led the Bardoli Satyagraha of 1928 against a tax increase, whose success earned him the title Sardar. He was elected president of Ahmedabad's municipality several times, presided over the Indian National Congress in 1931, and from 1934 ran its organisation and election campaigns. His speech of August 1942 helped rally support for the Quit India Movement.

At independence in 1947 Patel became India's first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister. He organised relief for refugees from partition and, with V. P. Menon and Lord Mountbatten, persuaded nearly all of some 565 princely states to join India; only Jammu and Kashmir, Junagadh and Hyderabad held out. He also shaped the All India Services. Known as the Iron Man of India, he died in Bombay in December 1950.