Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who was born on October 31, 1875, became India’s first Deputy Prime Minister on August 15, 1947, and was allocated the portfolios of home, information and broadcasting, and the states, dealing with the princely states. Soon began the vital task of consolidating India’s newly won freedom. He integrated 562 princely states within the Indian Union with tact, vision and statesmanship.

According to former Prime Minister Morarji Desai, “The integration of the states could be termed as the crowning achievement of Vallabhbhai Patel’s life. But for him this may not have been achieved easily and quickly.”

These states were scattered all over India. They varied in size from a state equal in area to France to a state of about four square miles. The princely states had been nursed by the British government to serve as bulwarks against the political unrest spreading across the rest of India and had become bastions of reaction and autocracy.

The Sardar found a very powerful ally in Lord Mountbatten, whose personal prestige and tactful handling of the leading rulers tilted the scales. Mountbatten, the Viceroy, warned the rulers of the perils of independent existence. A link-up with either dominion could alone give them stability.

In making their choice of dominion they could not resist the compulsions of geography and the will of the people, either. Mountbatten used his persuasive powers to blow away the hesitations of some of the important princes.

Patel organised the states department on July 5 and selected V.P. Menon, an officer of outstanding ability and experience, to be its secretary. India owes a debt of gratitude to Menon and his officers for the manner in which they carried out the Sardar’s policy and instructions against heavy odds. They showed skill in handling the rulers, disarming their suspicions, appealing to them in the name of patriotism — as well as of self-interest — and finally pushing them into signing the required agreements.

Their immediate object was to secure the accession of the states to India in matters that the states could not handle by themselves — namely, defence, foreign affairs and communications — and to secure standstill agreements to continue the existing agreements of common interest.

The states department had to work in an atmosphere of hostility from the Muslim League, which tried its best to lure some of the border states into signing agreements with Pakistan. Typical instances were those of the Maharaja of Jodhpur and the Maharajkumar of Jaisalmer who were invited by Jinnah. During the negotiations, Jinnah signed a blank sheet of paper and gave it to the Maharaja of Jodhpur saying, “You can fill in all your conditions.”

The Maharaja was tempted and turned to the Maharajkumar, who said to Jinnah: “If there is any dispute between Hindus and Muslims in my states I will not side with Muslims against Hindus.”

The spell was broken; Jinnah was left without an answer. A few days later, the Maharaja of Jodhpur met Lord Mountbatten, who warned him that his accession to Pakistan would be in conflict with the policy underlying the partition of the country and that he might have to face serious riots within his state.

The writing on the wall could not be ignored. Reluctantly, the Maharaja acceded to India, thus following the leads of the Maharajas of Patiala, Gwalior, Baroda and Bikaner. Similar was the case with the Nawab of Bhopal, who acceded to India after toying with the idea of remaining independent.

The real difficulty in integration came only in relation to the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Hyderabad, and Junagadh. On November 9, 1947, India took over Junagadh, and in a plebiscite held in February 1948 the people supported the accession to India by 190,779 votes against 91.

The Indian army marched into Hyderabad on September 13, 1948. As Jinnah had died only the day before, the British commander-in-chief requested Patel to postpone the operation, but he was overruled.

The integration of Jammu and Kashmir took much longer because of a Pakistan-sponsored tribal invasion of the state, which led to the first India-Pakistan war that ended only with New Year’s Day in 1949.

During Partition, India had lost 3.6 lakh square miles of territory along with a population of 81.5 million. With the integration of the states, India acquired an additional 5 lakh square miles of territory and a population of 86.5 million. Artificial barriers between the states and the rest of India were demolished. Almost overnight the superstructure of the modern system of government was introduced in these states.

But the contributions of Mountbatten and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru cannot be underestimated, nor that of V.P. Menon.

Sandeep Bamzai writes in his book Princestan: How Nehru, Patel and Mountbatten Made India: “Nehru was the progenitor of the idea of breaking the back of the princes, his visceral hatred for them shaped by Fabian Socialism and a brutal jail stint in Nabha in the early 1920s. He was the man who saw tomorrow... and strengthening the people’s movements in the states. Mountbatten was the centrifugal force which dismantled not just the Empire but, eventually, the venerable princelings....

“The third member of this Holy Trinity in the coordinated relay run was the Sardar. Patel, an administrator par excellence, was tough, unrelenting and unyielding. He completed the task imagined and envisioned by Nehru and overseen with great sagacity by Mountbatten.... And finally, there was Menon, the man who proved indefatigable and relentless in his pursuit of closure, as he hunted down each prey with calculating efficiency.”

Menon made the task of his mentor much lighter.

Patel, the “Iron Man of India”, died in Bombay (now Mumbai) on December 15, 1950, after prolonged illness. Before rushing to Bombay to attend his cremation, Nehru spoke in Parliament.

“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 and in moments of victory, as a friend and a colleague on whom one could invariably rely, as a tower of strength which revived wavering hearts,” Nehru said.

The writer, a former army officer, is a columnist and author of Freedom Struggle and Beyond