Respect to Unity. (English)

-
Today, even after 68 years of absence of The Iron Man of Bharat, his presence is still felt in the hearts of true Indians. Our wonderful country, when left by the British, was in such a state, that if looked at the map of India, it would look as if someone had shot my India with a machine gun. 562 different states, were all expecting dominion status from Bharat when the British left, and the herculean task of unifying all of them was given to the only man, who could have possibly done it. It was given to an impeccable lawyer, excellent orator, iron willed statesman and the most devoted son of Bharat, Shri. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

He was called the Man of Action, and the Man of Decision. Just by reading about him, we feel proud for him. His quick thinking, and decisions regarding intregration of Jodhpur, made the Maharaja Hanvant Singh to forego the "blank cheque" offer of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, to secede it into Pakistan. The negotiational skills of Sardarji were so phenomenal, that it saved the state from years of communal violence and disrupt, which would be done by Pakistan, because of the higher number of Hindus in the states demographic.

Similar mastery of public administration was shown when he brought back Junagadh from the clutches of Pakistan, after the Nawab has seceded it. He asked Pakistan to hold a plebiscite and ask the people for their desire. When Pakistan refused, Patelji put Indian Army into Junagadh and the Nawab fleed to Pakistan, and then himself held the plebiscite, in which 99% citizens voted to be with Bharat.

In case of Kashmir, on 22 October, 1947 over 5000 Pakistani soilders armed as lashkars (tribesmen) invaded Kashmir, just to make the situation more volatile there. Sardarji tried to put Indian Army there as fast as possible, but the route from Delhi to Srinagar passed through Sialkot, which was in Pakistan, so it was proving very difficult for the Indian Army to push through and reach there. Also the Maharaja Harisingh, was still undecided on whether to join India or Pakistan. The invaders reached Srinagar and then reached till Maharaja's house when he finally communicated with Sardarji and acceded Kashmir to India. Sardarji had, by then, started working on building a new road and supplied materials and workforce, to work day and night and finally made a road through Pathankot. Then, our heroic Indian Army pushed the lashkari rebels all the way back to where we draw the boundary of India today. All this could happen only because of quick thinking and decision making of The Iron Man and his associate, V. P. Menon.

Hyderabad was the most difficult case for Sardarji, because the Nizam wanted to secede to Pakistan, and was building a personal army and importing weapons from Europe. When Sardar Patel offered him to join to India, he threatened back with the life of the majority of people who were Hyderabadi Hindus. Things took a turn for worse when Razarkars (armed fanatics) started attacking Hindus in Hyderabad, by coming in their homes. In such a communally sensitive situation, Patel retaliated by his famous Operation Polo. On 17 September, 1948, Indian Army marched through Hyderabad and saved the people there from the fanatics and saved Indian land from becoming Pakistani.

There are numerous such incidents from the life of Sardar Patel, that have required deep thinking as well as quick decisions. When this tall leader is studied it feels like any other person would have failed if put in his shoes, at any time of his life. Facing such adversity, facing such communal violence, and yet taking decisions which will not only affect the lakhs present there in that scenario, but also for the billions yet to born, was unparalleled in World History. The footprints he left, of a United India, on the fabric of the World, will always make us proud to have the same motherland as him. It shall be our failure, if we discredit his work and let anyone else do that. And hence I fervently believe that the 182 meters tall, Statue Of Unity, world's tallest statue rises to be the proper respect, The Iron Man of India, deserves.

-Pandya.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Whole is greater than the Sum of its parts.

-
Image
When you read the letters on a page, you don't find meaning in the individual letters, but in the collection of letters called words. So dissecting a word to find its meaning may seem obtrusive to our aim. The meaning of the letters has now transcended into the words. So now, even if you know the individual letters, you still need to know the meaning of the word as a whole to understand it. This is understood by the society. As this society and culture is the transcendence of meaning from individuals, to a bigger whole. A collective meaning higher than the sum of its individual parts. Similarly an individual, has a bigger meaning than its individual organs, because now are not simply the assembly of organs, but we are also the interactions between them, and it's the personification of those interactions, which is you. Or if we continue on this path, we may reach atoms. Individual atoms, having zero meaning on its own. But when put together, they can study themselves i...
Read more

The Matka Boy.

-
Image
It was as good as any a day for the boy, holding his matka in front of him walking silently, behind his mother as they both walked over to the upper part of the river. His mother filled her two matkas, put one on her head and the other her waist and gestured him to do so too. He filled his matka, but unbeknownst to him, two snakes had entered the matka with the water. He didn't realise it and held it over his head. They both started walking home, with the boy sloshing a bit of water with every step he took. He reached home and his mother went to her cooking while he was putting his matka down, for the animals to drink from. One of the snakes raised his head out of the water and before he could react, suddenly bit him on his hand. The boy dropped the matka, which incidentally didn't break. The boy whimpered in pain as tears welled up in his eyes, but he didn't cry for help. Another head was raised from the matka and the snake spoke in a hissing sort of voice, ...
Read more

Diary Page 15/9/2019 (My dear Luna)

-
Image
Today, in the fury of reading everything there is to know about ISRO, I was struck by a very righteous question and subsequently got hit by the right answer. At the very least I feel that it is right. Also watching the movie “First Man” didn’t hurt either. I learned about the various missions we have undertook and how after facing extreme peril won over them, or won them over. I learned about the feelings of the entire nation after the “95%” success of Chandrayaan 2 as I too was in the flood of feelings when at 2.1 km above the surface of Luna, we lost our Vikram and Pragyan. The constant efforts to establish communications with it will continue till 21/9/2019 after which its lifespan will end. To the curious, that will be because of very little heat protection, the sun will literally fry the wiring in the instruments, rendering it obsolete. After that, as everyone says, we shall move on. We have come a long way from INCOSPAR in 1962, and since the formation of ISRO in 1969, ex...
Read more