The divide that never was - Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru relationship

Any Nehru-Patel differences have been deliberately exaggerated by partisan interests. In truth, they shared a close bond that overrode the differences Photo: The Hindu Archives   | Photo Credit: HINDU PHOTO ARCHIVES

Nehru and Patel were in fact not rivals but comrades and co-workers. They worked closely together in the Congress from the 1920s to 1947; and even more closely together thereafter, as prime minister and deputy prime minister in the first government of free India.

Independence and Partition, Nehru and Patel worked shoulder-to-shoulder in building a united and democratic nation.

Nehru and Patel shared a deep love of their country, an abiding commitment to its unity, and, not least, a sense that they owed it to the memory of their common Master, Mahatma Gandhi, to work together, and to work ferociously hard too. For, as AS Iyengar’s All Through the Gandhian Era, published in 1950 remarked: “Both are untiring workers, allowing themselves practically no rest, either physical or mental.”

Nehru and Patel often disagreed, and furiously so. But such was the beauty of the relationship that they rarely kept a secret from each other. They wrote to each other almost every other day, expressing their doubts and differences honestly and openly, and concluding in the end that their mutual affection and regard outweighed any difference they felt with regard to state policy. In their letters, the two great men agonized over the rumors surrounding their relationship and the constant attempts to create a divide between them.
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.

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." 

The regard and affection Patel felt for Nehru are best captured in the tribute he paid Nehru on the latter’s 60th birthday which fell on November 14, 1949. This forms part of a volume, Nehru: Abhinandan Granth, put together by an editorial board consisting of such men of eminence as Rajendra Prasad, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Purushottamdas Tandon. 
In the tribute, Patel writes

“our mutual affection that has increased as years have advanced.” Further, “ ... it is difficult for people to imagine how much we miss each other when we are apart and unable to take counsel together in order to resolve our problems and difficulties. This familiarity, nearness, intimacy and brotherly affection make it difficult for me to sum him up for public appreciation, but, then the idol of the nation, the leader of the people, the Prime Minister of the country, and the hero of the masses, whose noble record and great achievements are an open book, hardly needs any commendation from me ...”

On Nehru being chosen Prime Minister, Patel says: “… it was in the fitness of things that in the twilight preceding the dawn of independence he should have been our leading light, and that when India was faced with crisis after crisis, following the achievement of our freedom, he should have been the upholder of our faith and the leader of our legions. No one knows better than myself how much he has laboured for his country in the last two years of our difficult existence …. As one older in years, it has been my privilege to tender advice to him on the manifold problems with which we have been faced in both administrative and organisational fields. I have always found him willing to seek and ready to take it ...”

Patel then emphatically dismisses all suggestions of a great divide between the two: “Contrary to impressions created by some interested persons and eagerly accepted in credulous circles, we have worked together as lifelong friends and colleagues, adjusting ourselves to each other’s point of view as the occasion demanded and valuing each other’s advice as only those who have confidence in each other can ...”

“Idol of the nation;” “hero of the masses;” “upholder of our faith and the leader of our legions” — these are Patel’s own words for Nehru, and he said all this in November 1949 well after the crisis of Hyderabad.

Within an hour of Patel’s death on December 15, 1950, Nehru made a statement to Parliament which said: 

“… [E]arly this morning, he had a relapse and the story of his great life ended. It is a great story, as all of us know, as the whole country knows, and history will record it in many pages. But perhaps to many of us here he will be remembered as a great captain of our forces in the struggle for freedom and as one who gave us sound advice in times of trouble as well as in moments of victory, as a friend and colleague on whom one could invariably rely, as a tower of strength which revived wavering hearts when were in trouble … I who have sat here on this bench side by side with him for these several years will feel rather forlorn and a certain emptiness will steal upon me when I look to his empty bench ...”