Word: patel
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From Delhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the tough Minister for States Affairs, has hurled a challenge at the Nizam: "Accede or die." Even peace-talking Premier Jawaharlal Nehru threatened Hyderabad. With contempt he said: "It is a completely wrong notion to talk of war with Hyderabad ... If there are to be wars they must be with free countries. But ... if and when it is considered necessary we shall have military operations against Hyderabad...
Since India surrounds Hyderabad, Patel and Nehru could probably make good their threat. The Nizam, however, had a counter-threat. A dagger-eyed little man named Kasim Razvi calmly threatened to protect Hyderabad by starting another series of India-wide communal massacres...
Disrespect in the Soles. Two of the chief mourners on the duck which bore Gandhi's ashes were Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel, both clad in white dhotis, both barefoot. The two men on whom India's hopes were now pinned-the gentle, philosophical Nehru, who agreed with Gandhi's policy of conciliation toward Moslems, and the hard man of action Patel, no conciliator-seemed united in grief and respect for Gandhi's wishes. Their first step had been to strike at the extremist communal organizations, Hindu and Moslem, which had been fomenting religious hatred...
...Ramdas set fire to the ghi-soaked wood with the charcoal he had carried, smoldering, all the way from Birla House. Nehru, Patel, Governor General Earl Mountbatten and his Lady threw last rose petals on the pyre as the white smoke of sweet-smelling sandalwood rose against the scarlet evening sun. From nearly a million throats came the chant, half in mourning, half in triumph: "Mahatma Gandhi amar ho gae!"-"Mahatma Gandhi has become immortal...
...therefore indefensible: untouchability, suttee (widow suicide), child marriages. Hindu and Sikh refugees from Moslem hate and murder, pouring into Delhi and other Indian cities, clamored for revenge. The militant Hindu organization Mahasabha (Great Society), to which Gandhi's assassin belonged, worked to make Indiaa purely Hindu state. Patel gave some encouragement to the extremists, which may partly explain why, at Gandhi's funeral, his head was bowed...