Vallabhbhai Patel was the first major leader of the freedom movement who came from a rural background. Notably, it was as a mobilizer of peasants that he first made his mark on the national stage.
Recent discussions of Patels historical legacy have stressed his crucial role in the integration of the princely states and in furthering national unity in the aftermath of Independence and Partition.
Those contributions were indeed substantial, but it would be a pity if an exclusive attention to them obscures his formative work as a peasant organizer.
Indeed, it is Patel as a Sardar (leader) of the kisans who seems most relevant to us today when, for more than a year now, peasants in northern India have sustained a satyagraha against the Narendra Modi government.
Read Ramachandra Guha's column on the Iron Man of India here.
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