Why is Vallabhbhai Patel’s name important when it comes to the Kisan Movement in India?
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Answer:
Sardar Patel used diplomacy, mediation, and foresight to get the various princely states into the Indian Union without bloodshed. ... Hence, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was called the "Iron Man of India" for his unwavering attempts to integrate the princely states into the Indian federation.
Answer:
Vallabhbhai Patel, in full Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel, byname Sardar Patel (Hindi: “Leader Patel”), (born October 31, 1875, Nadiad, Gujarat, India—died December 15, 1950, Bombay [now Mumbai]), Indian barrister and statesman, one of the leaders of the Indian National Congress during the struggle for Indian independence. During the first three years of Indian independence after 1947, he served as deputy prime minister, minister of home affairs, minister of information, and minister of states.
Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel
Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel
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Born: October 31, 1875 Nadiad India
Died: December 15, 1950 (aged 75) Mumbai India
Political Affiliation: Indian National Congress
Early life and legal career
Patel was born into a self-sufficient landowning family of the Leva Patidar caste. Reared in an atmosphere of traditional Hinduism, he attended primary school at Karamasad and high school at Petlad but was mainly self-taught. Patel married at the age of 16, matriculated at 22, and passed the district pleader’s examination, which enabled him to practice law. In 1900 he set up an independent office of district pleader in Godhra, and two years later he moved to Borsad.
As a lawyer, Patel distinguished himself in presenting an unassailable case in a precise manner and in challenging police witnesses and British judges. In 1908 Patel lost his wife, who had borne him a son and daughter, and thereafter remained a widower. Determined to enhance his career in the legal profession, Patel traveled to London in August 1910 to study at the Middle Temple. There he studied diligently and passed the final examinations with high honours.
Returning to India in February 1913, he settled in Ahmadabad, rising rapidly to become the leading barrister in criminal law at the Ahmadabad bar. Reserved and courteous, he was noted for his superior mannerisms, his smart, English-style clothes, and his championship in bridge at Ahmadabad’s fashionable Gujarat Club. He was, until 1917, indifferent to Indian political activities.
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In 1917 Patel found the course of his life changed after having been influenced by Mohandas K. Gandhi. Patel adhered to Gandhi’s satyagraha (policy of nonviolence) insofar as it furthered the Indian struggle against the British. But he did not identify himself with Gandhi’s moral convictions and ideals, and he regarded Gandhi’s emphasis on their universal application as irrelevant to India’s immediate political, economic, and social problems. Nevertheless, having resolved to follow and support Gandhi, Patel changed his style and appearance. He quit the Gujarat Club, dressed in the white cloth of the Indian peasant, and ate in the Indian manner.
From 1917 to 1924 Patel served as the first Indian municipal commissioner of Ahmadabad and was its elected municipal president from 1924 to 1928. Patel first made his mark in 1918, when he planned mass campaigns of peasants, farmers, and landowners of Kaira, Gujarat, against the decision of the Bombay government to collect the full annual revenue taxes despite crop failures caused by heavy rains.
In 1928 Patel successfully led the landowners of Bardoli in their resistance against increased taxes. His efficient leadership of the Bardoli campaign earned him the title sardar (“leader”), and henceforth he was acknowledged as a nationalist leader throughout India. He was considered practical, decisive, and even ruthless, and the British recognized him as a dangerous enemy.
Political philosophy
Patel, however, was no revolutionary. In the crucial debate over the objectives of the Indian National Congress during the years 1928 to 1931, Patel believed (like Gandhi and Motilal Nehru, but unlike Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose) that the goal of the Indian National Congress should be dominion status within the British Commonwealth—not independence. In contrast to Jawaharlal Nehru, who condoned violence in the struggle for independence, Patel ruled out armed revolution, not on moral but on practical grounds. Patel held that it would be abortive and would entail severe repression. Patel, like Gandhi, saw advantages in the future participation of a free India in a British Commonwealth, provided that India was admitted as an equal member. He emphasized the need to foster Indian self-reliance and self-confidence, but, unlike Gandhi, he did not regard Hindu-Muslim unity as a prerequisite for