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.
Source: http://www.dailypioneer.com/home/online-channel/360-todays-newspaper/105521-revealed-nehru-wanted-to-scuttle-sardars-hyderabad-plan.html
No comments:
Post a Comment