PM Modi taking forward Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s dream: Anurag Thakur

The I&B Minister said that Patel was a visionary and it was unfortunate that he didn’t get enough opportunities to take the country forward after Independence.

Now even small news of a village reaches the national platform through digital media, Thakur said. (Express photo by Abhinav Saha)

Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur on Monday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was taking forward Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s vision of ‘One India (Ek Bharat)’ with ‘Shreshta Bharat (India the best)’, adding imagine an India fragmented into hundreds of princely states had Patel not been there.

“In the past, only one family was promoted in a way as if the entire freedom struggle was fought by them, but history is witness that wherever they intervened that area couldn’t become a part of India in real terms,” he said while delivering the Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture that was aired on the All India Radio (AIR).

Touching upon first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s role in the accession of Jammu & Kashmir to India, Thakur said, “The country remembers Patel for integration… Jammu & Kashmir’s responsibility was taken by Nehru. Article 370 has been a huge obstacle in the integration of J&K… by abrogating Article 370 and ending Article 35A, the Modi government has realised Patel’s dream.”

The I&B Minister said that Patel was a visionary and it was unfortunate that he didn’t get enough opportunities to take the country forward after Independence.

“Leaders of the time committed some blunders with respect to China… Patel could anticipate the impending threat from China. In a letter to Nehru on November 7, 1948, he had said, ‘the government of China is trying to mislead us by declaring their peaceful intent. It’s sad that we have let Tibetans down, who reposed their faith in us,” the Union minister said.

Divya A

Divya A reports on travel, tourism, culture and social issues - not necessarily in that order - for The Indian Express. She's been a journalist for over a decade now, working with Khaleej Times and The Times of India, before settling down at Express. Besides writing/ editing news reports, she indulges her pen to write short stories. As Sanskriti Prabha Dutt Fellow for Excellence in Journalism, she is researching on the lives of the children of sex workers in India. ... Read More

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