Ramachandra Guha: Nehru and Patel argued frequently – but ended every dispute with unity

In 1991, Rajmohan Gandhi published Patel: A Life. In the Preface to the book, dated April 1990, Rajmohan writes: “The establishment of independent India derived legitimacy and power, broadly speaking, from the exertions of three men, Gandhi, Nehru and Patel. But while its acknowledgements are fulsome in the case of Nehru and dutiful in the case of Gandhi, they are niggardly in the case of Patel.”

This Preface was written shortly after the Nehru Centenary was celebrated with pomp and splendour by a government led by Nehru’s grandson, Rajiv Gandhi. Before Rajiv, his mother, Indira, had served a decade-and-a-half as prime minister, in which time too much effort was expended on burnishing Nehru’s posthumous image. That was the context in which Rajmohan’s book on Vallabhbhai Patel was first published.

His book has now appeared in a new edition, 35 years later, at a time when the political climate is all too different. For ever since Narendra Modi became prime minister in May 2014, his government has done all it can to glorify and elevate Patel on the one hand and to vilify and demonise Nehru on the other.

Prime Minister @narendramodi pays floral tribute to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel at the Statue of Unity in Ekta Nagar on...

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