Author: H M Patel
Amrita Abraham/
Editor(s): Amrita Abraham
Publisher: Rupa
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 296
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8129106299
Description
Volumes have been written about the Indian Freedom Movement that began with Dadabhoy Naoroji, Gandhi, Tagore and Sri Aurobindo. The men who followed them: Tilak and Nehru, Azad and Patel now occupy their rightful place in history. Very little has been said about a third generation of patriots, men who had lit their torches at the parental flame.
It was their mission to carry the torch safely over the stormy waters of transition, the terrible bloodletting of the Partition and the general civic unrest that attends the birth of a great democratic nation. H M Patel was one of these forgotten heroes: men who presided with commitment, care and wisdom over the fragile early decades of the infant republic. Midwifery, as Socrates said, is a humble vocation. It seeks no praise for itself but asks only to serve the greatness that is waiting to be born.
A word of caution. One must avoid the temptation of taking a single essay or speech as an example of HM’s political learning’s. For one, in some he speaks from within the government as a bureaucrat or minister. In the radio talk on socialism, he was quite clearly expressing the official view, but how far he was, or was not, in sympathy with it at that time is hard to say. Second, his ideas would have evolved over thirty years. A comprehensive picture of an individual’s evolving politics cannot be derived from the kind of material this book is based on.
There are issues on which his standpoint is not available-for example, the dismissal of EMS. Namboodripad’s communist government in Kerala (1959). Given both HM’s concern for democratic principle and practice and his mistrust of communism, it would have been a natural subject of him to comment on. Nor is there any writing here about Morarji Desai’s controversial dismissal of congress state governments (1977). Obviously, these selections are not a history. They are snapshots of the first decades of a nation in the making.
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION
SARDAR: INDIAN’S MAN OF VISION
The Princes and the People
An Arch-realist
A Most Remarkable Achievement
The Heart of the Iron Man
Sardar and the Civil Servants
In His Own Judgment
A Man of his Word
HOW THE CABINET SYSTEM OF GOVERNMETN WAS SHAPED IN THE EARLY DAYS
PREPARING FOR WAR
The Defence Minister and the Chiefs
Signing Tibet’s Death Warrant
Out-generalled
Reorganising the Armed Forces in 1947
Morale-destroying weakness
A Dozen MIGs is Precious Little
The Dilemmas of Non-alignment
MUNDHRA: THE SCANDAL THAT NEVER WAS
The Background
The Facts
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CIVIL SERVICE
Inefficient, Arrogant and Corrupt
Committed to Whom?
The Prime Minister Wants Action
Why the Administration is on the Verge of Collapse
SALVATION ACCORDING TO OUR OWN LIGHTS
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING SECULAR
PRIVATE INITIATIVE, PUBLIC DIRECTION
High Hopes for the Public Sector in 1957
Two Decades Later
SELLING TOOTHPASTE AND MACHINE-TOOLS
RURAL REALITIES
Panchayati Raj in a Hurry
Sentencing Farmers to Permanent Poverty
FOREIGN POLICY PUZZLES
Our Strange concept of Non-alignment
Common Sense on Foreign Aid
The Simla Peace
PREGMATIC CHOICES
Indian Democracy-Twenty-five Years On
No Air of Freedom to Breathe
Educating Citizens in a Free Country
How Black Money Grows
THE LIMITS OF GROWTHMANSHIP
THE FOUNDERS
Bhaikaka: Good and Just, Through and Through
Gorwala’s Justice
LIFE-SUPPORT SYSTEMS
The Wood and the Trees
Energetic Solutions
CHRONOLOGY
INDEX