Tribute to President Vithalbhai Patel - 22-10-2021
AMRITA BAZAR PATRIKA
The Stormy Patel
Mr. Vithalbhai Patel has died away from his homeland. His last wishes that he might lay down his mortal coil on the soil of his motherland could not be fulfilled. Like Raja Rammohun Roy, the prophet of the new era, this fighter for the freedom of the motherland, one of the bravest and most skilful, has died in a strange land where his words, his movements were being watched with the closest attention by his countrymen. Mr. Patel, the " Stormy Petrel" of the Swaraj Party was not a mere personality unique though he is. He represented in his person the three great phases of India's struggle for freedom-a non-co-operator, then a co-operator and again a non-co-operator; he has died in grief that he had to leave the world before he could see his country free. Ripe in age and further stricken by bodily infirmities any other man of his achievement would have been content to rest on his laurels, and the gratitude of his countrymen would not have been less for it. Both before and after he became President of the Assembly, he had done glorious service to his countrymen of which any man could justly be proud. But neither age nor infirmity nor incarceration could conquer the indomitable spirit of the man who had determined to fight till the last breath of his life for his country. For this soldier there was to be no invalidation, no place on the retired list. Those who had the privilege to know him intimately wondered how he could manage to do the strenuous work that he was doing. He reminded them of the hero in the story who fought when his legs were blown away, who maintained the fight when nothing was left of his hands, who continued the fight with his head resting on his trunk. Such was Mr. Patel of the indomitable will who had for years fought also against death. Death has at last conquered his flesh but has it conquered his spirit? That spirit lives and will live till the battle is won.
THE HINDUSTAN
TIMES (DELHI)
India is the poorer for the loss of Vithalbhai Patel. As a patriot and doughty fighter, he represented a class by himself and rendered services to the utmost of his capacity and opportunities. Deliberately, Vithalbhai chose the harder path at a time when men of lesser ability were being lured into good careers of comfort and his death in a foreign land after a long struggle completes a chapter of accomplishment and sacrifice which will be gratefully remembered by a nation that is in mourning today. As a patriot, Vithalbhai was cast in the mould of Parnell, he belonged to the “logic school” of politics as compared with what Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru would call the “magic school” of politics. As a politician, he liked leadership not for personal self-aggrandisement and material exploitation but for the rendering of service wherever possible in terms of national self-respect, a quality in which we are still deficient. Even in private, he was a rare example of Indian manhood and patriotism, and one fears that taken all in all, we shall not look upon his like again.
