He was friend of all and threat to none of his colleagues: a Prince turned a lieutenant of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel, Darbar Gopaldas Desai played key role in the freedom movement and integration of the princely states of Gujarat but hardly got credit for. Of course, he never aspired. Dhasa and Rai-Sankli near Wadhwan belonged to him.He hailed from a Patidar family of Vaso in Charotar and unlike others defended Dalit dignity and Muslim lives fearlessly during the freedom movement. At Wadhawan when the discussion was on justice to Dalits was on at the Political Conference and the Dalits were sitting in a separate crowd, Sardar Patel preferred to join them followed by Darbar Gopaldas. “When towards the end of 1947 there was an attack on Vaso’s Muslim minority, Gopaldas put aside his Constituent Assembly work in New Delhi, rushed to Vaso, rebuked those who had allowed the violence, arranged relief and compensation for victims.” A celebrated historian Rajmohan Gandhi, widely known for his excellent and authoritative biography of Sardar Patel, has presented so far hidden extraordinary contribution of DardarGopaldas in “Prince of Gujarat: The Extraordinary Story of Prince Gopaldas Desai:1887-1951”.
“A Gujarati in his bones and blood, Gopaldas was a Kathiawadi in his heart and soul.He was not merely a ‘mainland Gujarati’.Neither was he just a Kathiawadi.He was both. Identifying himself with all of Gujarat, in his time, he enabled all Gujaratis to relate to him.Proud yeomen farmers for centuries, the Patidars never thought they were inferior to the Rajputs who ruled scores of large or small principalities in Kathiawad. Gopaldas and his forebears were sturdy Patidars and yet, virtually uniquely among Patels, they were rulers as well,” writes Gandhi. The ruling family of Patdi near Viramgam were also Patidars but from the Kadva line, distinct from the Leuva branch of Patels to which Gopaldas’s forebears belonged. Both he and his second wife Bhaktiba opted to join Gandhian movement against the British taking risk of attachment of his principality and jail terms for offering Satyagraha.
On 23 May 1947 when the British were set to leave India by August 1947, Darbar Gopaldas’s attached estates of Dhasa, Rai and Sankli were finally returned to him. The ex-prince became a prince again. But he declared:“The principles we agreed upon 25 years back I will continue to implement. There will be no Veth. It will be a stigma on the Darbar or any village leader if he gets work done without paying for it.” Gopaldas merged his principality into the Indian Union on the very day it was restored to him and was possibly the first prince in the whole of India to do so, records Rajmohan. He quite often blunt saying, “My Adarsh is Gandhiji, not Sardar.” The implication was that he was content to build others, not eager to wield power personality. Thanks to him, Balwantray Mehta who was older than U.N.Dhebar preferred to serve under him in the Saurashtra government.
Rajmohan presents an interesting episode when Gopaldas finalized the terms of Baroda’s formal accession to India he was directly involved at Sardar Patel’s instance. Maharaja Pratapsingh Rao Gaekwad was tough in dealing with and his legal adviser K.M.Munshi was of course very cooperative. Gandhi writes: “When Gopaldas finalized the terms of Baroda’s accession to India with Pratapsingh Rao, newspapers published a photograph of Sita Devi, the Baroda ruler’s second wife, lighting a cigarette for Gopaldas. It would be an error, however, to think that Pratapsingh had secured liberal terms by flattering Gopaldas. It was Patel’s policy, fully backed by Pandit Nehru, that princes parting with their power should be generously compensated.”
Next Column: Dalmia: A romantic Industrialist closed to Jinnah
Photo line: Cover page of Rajmohan Gandhi’s book
