by
Kumar Chellappan
Sardar
Vallabhbhai Patel, the then Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister of India,
whose 137th birth anniversary is on October 31, was insulted, humiliated and
disgraced by the then Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, during a Cabinet
meeting. “You are a complete communalist and I’ll never be a party to your
suggestions and proposals,” Nehru shouted at Patel during a crucial Cabinet
meeting to discuss the liberation of Hyderabad by the Army from the tyranny of
the Razakkars, the then Nizam’s private army.
“A shocked Sardar Patel collected his papers from the table and
slowly walked out of the Cabinet room. That was the last time Patel attended a
Cabinet meeting. He also stopped speaking to Nehru since then,” writes MKK
Nair, a 1947 batch IAS officer, in his memoirs “With No Ill Feeling to
Anybody”. Nair had close ties with both Sardar and VP Menon, his Man Friday.
Though Nair has not written the exact date of the above mentioned
Cabinet meeting, it could have happened during the weeks prior to the
liberation of Hyderabad
by the Indian Army. Operation Polo, the mission to liberate Hyderabad from the Nizam, began on September
13, 1948 and culminated on September 18. While Sardar Patel wanted direct
military action to liberate Hyderabad
from the rape and mayhem perpetrated by the 2,00,000 Razakars, Nehru preferred
the United Nations route.
Nair writes that Nehru’s personal hatred for Sardar Patel came out
in the open on December 15, 1950, the day the Sardar breathed his last in Bombay (now Mumbai).
“Immediately after he got the news about Sardar Patel’s death, Nehru sent two
notes to the Ministry of States. The notes reached VP Menon, the then Secretary
to the Ministry. In one of the notes, Nehru had asked Menon to send the
official Cadillac car used by Sardar Patel to the former’s office. The second
note was shocking. Nehru wanted government secretaries desirous of attending
Sardar Patel’s last rites to do so at their own personal expenses.
“But Menon convened a meeting of all secretaries and asked them to
furnish the names of those who want to attend the last rites of Patel. He did
not mention anything about the note sent by Nehru. Menon paid the entire cost
of the air tickets for those secretaries who expressed their wish to attend
Sardar’s last journey. This further infuriated Nehru,” Nair has written about
his memoirs in the corridors of power in New
Delhi.
Nair’s friendship with Patel began during the former’s posting in Hyderabad as a civilian
officer of the Army. “I was a bachelor and my guest house was a rendezvous of all
those in the inner circle of the then Nizam of Hyderabad. Every night they
arrived with bundles of currency notes. We gambled and played flash and the
stakes were high. During the game I served them the finest Scotch. After a
couple of drinks, the princes and the junior Nawabs would open their minds and
reveal the secret action plans being drawn out in the Nizam’s palace. Once
intoxicated, they would tell me about the plans to merge Hyderabad
with Pakistan
after independence. This was information that no one outside the Nawab’s close
family members and the British secret service were privy to. But I ensured that
this information reached directly to Sardar Patel and thus grew our relation,”
writes Nair.
The relation between Nair and Sardar Patel was such that the
former’s director general in the ministry told him once: “Sardar Patel keeps an
open house for you.” Nair, who worked in various ministries during his
three-decade long civil service career, writes that the formation of North East
Frontier Service under the Ministry of External Affairs by Nehru and the
removal of the affairs of the Jammu & Kashmir from the Ministry of Home
Affairs are the major reasons behind the turmoil in both the regions.
“This was done by Nehru to curtail the wings of Sardar Patel,”
Nair has written. Though Sardar Patel was known as a no-nonsense man
devoid of any sense of humour, Nair has written about lighter moments featuring
him. The one centres around VP Menon with whom Patel had a special relation.
Menon had to face the ire of Nesamani Nadar, a Congress MP from Kanyakumari,
during his visit to Thiruvananthapuram in connection with the reorganisation of
States. Nadar barged into Menon’s suit in the State Gust House and shouted at
him for not obeying his diktats. Menon, who was enjoying his quota of
sun-downer, asked Nadar to get out of his room. A furious Nadar sent a six-page
letter to Sardar Patel trading all kinds of charges against Menon. “He was
fully drunk when I went to meet him in the evening and he abused me using the
filthiest of languages,” complained Nadar in his letter.
Sardar Patel, who read the letter in full asked his secretary V
Shankar, an ICS officer: “Shankar, does VP take drinks?” Shankar, who was
embarrassed by the question, had to spill the beans. “Sir, Menon takes a couple
of drinks in the evening,” he said. Sardar was curious to know what was Menon’s
favorite drink. Shankar replied that Menon preferred only Scotch. “Shankar, you
instruct all government secretaries to take Scotch in the evening,” Sardar told
Shankar. Nair writes that this anecdote was a rave in the Delhi evenings for a number of years!
Balraj Krishna (92), who authored Sardar’s biography, told The
Pioneer that Nehru was opposed to Babu Rajendra Prasad, the then President,
travelling to Bombay to pay his last respects to Patel. “But Prasad insisted
and made it to Bombay,” said Krishna.
MV Kamath, senior journalist, said though Nehru too attended the funeral of
Patel, it was C Rajagopalachari, who delivered the funeral oration.
Prof MGS Narayanan, former chairman of Indian Council of
Historical Research, said there was no reason to disbelieve what Nair has
written. “But his memoirs did not get the due recognition it deserved. It is a
historical chronicle of pre-and post independent India,” he said.
Courtesy:
The Pioneer
