History, as French historian and codirector of legendary journal Annales Marc Ferro says, exercises a double function both therapeutic and militant. BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi , in keeping with his branding as a strong Hindutva icon, seems to prefer the latter. The distortion he is capable of was evident in Patna; mixing the Mauryan and Gupta dynasties and bringing Alexander to Bihar.

For the past few days Modi — who is even called Chhota Sardar by some party members — has been harping on Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel , independent India’s first home minister. As is Modi’s wont he has appropriated Patel without much homework. With its colossal ignorance about Patel, Congress is not helping the debate either. But it would do both Modi and Congress good to go through 10-volumes of Sardar Patel’s correspondence of five years — 1945-50 — the tumultuous period in Indian history when the Patel-Jawaharlal Nehru rift was at its peak.

It is a fact that Patel and Nehru were cut from different cloth and they had huge differences. The two were slated to meet Gandhi to sort things out but then Nathuram Godse did not let that happen. After Gandhi’s killing, not only did the two resolve their differences to a large extent but spoke in unison on many issues. The mammoth collection of Patel’s letters of five years would be a huge disappointment to Modi when he reads what the first home minister had to say about Hindu Mahasabha, RSS and Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, a BJP icon. Patel’s views on socialist Jayaprakash Narayan whom Modi talked of so fondly the other day in Patna would definitely not please Modi. And if key NDA ally Akali Dal gets to know that Patel called Master Tara Singh, the tallest Sikh leader, “not normal” there could be problems. It would also help Modi to dust off Hindu Mahasabha history and read what its ex-president NB Khare, once a leading light of the Congress in the Central Province, whose ouster was blamed on Patel, had to say about the iron man.

The flashpoint

But first let’s talk about the Patel-Nehru rift that reached a flashpoint in December 1947, when Nehru sent his principal private secretary HVR Iyengar to give a report on communal riots in Ajmer-Merwara region of what is now Rajasthan without keeping Patel, the home minister, informed. A ‘shocked’ Patel wrote to Nehru and protested. On his part, Nehru (December 23 1947) explained to Patel that the idea was not to undercut him but to get a first-hand report since he could not make it to the area. Nehru wrote, “It seems our approaches are different, however much we may respect each other…If I am to continue as PM I cannot have my freedom restricted and I must have a certain liberty of direction. Otherwise, it is better for me to retire.” Sardar wrote back, “I have no desire to restrain your liberty of direction in any manner…but when it is clear to us that on the fundamental question of our respective spheres of responsibility, authority and action, there is such a vital difference of opinions between us, it would not be in the interest of the cause which we both wish to serve to continue to pull on longer.”

After Gandhi's assassination

Before the matter could be resolved Godse killed Gandhi. Patel, hurt by allegations that he could not protect the Mahatma, offered to resign only to have Nehru reject it. “… In my last letter I had expressed the hope that, in spite of certain differences of opinion and temperament, we should continue to pull together as we had done for so long. This was, I am glad to find, Bapu’s final opinion also…Anyway, in the crisis that we have to face now after Bapu’s death, I think it is my duty and, if I may venture to say, yours also, for us to face it together as friends and colleagues.” Nehru also told Patel that the talk of a rift between the two had become ‘whispers and rumours’ and even reached foreign ambassadors and correspondents. ‘Mischief-makers take advantage of this,” Nehru wrote.

And when Shyama Prasad Mookerjee pleaded for the Hindu Mahasabha leaders Asutosh Lahiri and Mahant Digvijay Nath, arrested for their alleged role in Gandhi’s murder, Patel shot back that what was being considered was if both should be prosecuted or not and refused to set them free. Patel was also angry with the Hindu Mahasabha for collecting funds for the defence of Godse. When Mookerjee gave a circuitous reply, Patel told him, “If the official organization of the Hindu Mahasabha is being utilized for this purpose there can be only one inference, namely that the HM is in it.”

In May 1948, when Nehru told Patel that the RSS cadre was back in action despite the ban, Patel told him he had banned ‘drill of military or semi-military type, in addition to the ban on the organization which already exists’. Patel pointed out that courts in UP and Bombay were releasing RSS cadre and any attempt to exercise more power was seen as acting against civil liberty. When Mookerjee suggested a meeting of Hindu organizations, Patel told him how he believed the ‘extreme section of HM’ was behind Gandhi’s murder. He accused the RSS of posing a threat to the government and indulging in ‘subversive activities’. In 1945 during the Central Legislative Assembly election it was Patel who told Nehru that “the Congress cannot think of any settlement with the HM.”

Friends again

By April 1948, the differences between the two had resolved to the extent that a tired Nehru wrote to out-of-town Patel: “I feel your absence greatly. There are so many serious problems cropping up continually about which I would like to consult you.” In September 1948, when intense lobbying began for Congress presidentship, both Nehru and Patel decided not to give any public or private support to any of the candidates. At the height of Patel’s effort to integrate Hyderabad state to India, what irked him was Jayaprakash Narayan’s speech in Hyderabad blaming the government. The fact that Nehru was praising JP those days was not helping matters either. He told Nehru, “I feel that such irresponsible utterances and embarrassing attitude on his part hardly justify any faith in him. I have all along been of the view that if the future of India is in the hands of men like JP it would probably be the most unfortunate circumstance.” In fact, Patel saw it as a socialist conspiracy to drive a wedge between him and Nehru.

As for Master Tara Singh, who was arrested after demanding that Punjabi language and Gurumukhi script be made compulsory, Patel suggested to Nehru that he should not be released until, like MS Golwalkar, he gave a written undertaking.

In another letter Patel sent Nehru, he included a copy of Tara Singh’s interview with his son in jail and told the PM that it (interview) showed “he is not normal”. On December 1950, when an ailing Patel headed for Mumbai for treatment, one of the persons to see him off at the airport was PM Nehru. He died three days later.