The laurels obtained during the Bardoli Satyagraha secured for Vallabhbhai considerable political power and a distinguished place among the national leaders of the time, a place which he retained till the end of his life. With the title of ‘Sardar’ conferred on him by the people of Gujarat, Vallabhbhai moved on to a role that required full participation on the national scene.
It in Congress session of 1928 held at calcutta, the President, Motilal Nehru, moved a resolution congratulating Vallabhbhai and the people of Bardoli. But where was the hero of the Bardoli struggle? He was nowhere to be seen. The audience shouted, “Where is he? We want Sardar”. Vallabhbhai who was squatting on the floor among the crowd stood up to show himself. But the people were not satisfied. They wanted him on the dais. He showed reluctance but was pushed on to the platform. He was asked to say a few words. And he said, “I thank you for having congratulated the peasants of Bardoli. If you are genuinely appreciative of what they have done, I hope that you well follow in their footsteps”. Vallabhbhai did not want any publicity and was rather shy of making speeches. But now he was getting invitations from all types of organisations from all over the country. Even though he tried to avoid them, Gandhiji would interfere and he had to accept.
In March 1929, Vallabhbhai was invited to preside over the 5th Kathiawad Political Conference. He did same plain-speaking by telling the people to speak less and work more. A couple of months later he was invited to preside at the Maharashtra Political Conference. He accepted the invitation only when pressed by Gandhiji. Next Vallabhbhai was invited by C. Rajagopalachari to be the President of Tamil Nadu Political Conference.
Sardar agreed at the instance of Gandhiji. The conference was held at Vedaranyam in August. After the conference he toured along with Rajaji all over the province and spoke in every village he visited. In almost all his speeches he stressed the need for constructive work and the futility of shouting slogans, passing resolutions and making speeches. He asked the people to unite and forget their quarrels and trickerings. From Tamil Nadu Vallabhbhai went to Karnataka at the instance of Gangadhar Rao Deshpande who was trying hard to establish a peasant league there. In all he addressed ten meetings. The main theme of these speeches was that people should give up the fear of government officers and of jails. He exhorted them to give up foreign cloth and drink and petty quarrels. After Karnataka, Vallabhbhai toured Bihar for about a fortnight. He was pained to see the peasants suffering endlessly at the hands of Zamindars.
Vallabhbhai’s tours proved very useful. Everywhere he exhorted people to face tyranny and become fearless and thus prepared the masses for the next Satyagraha. It also made Vallabhbhai very popular. When the Lahore session of the Indian National Congress was to be held he was tipped for presidentship. But he politely declined the offer as Mahatma Gandhi wanted Jawaharlal Nehru to be the President. So Jawaharlal Nehru was elected President though ten provinces had recommended the name of Vallabhbhai and only three had recommended the name of Nehru.
Vallabhbhai was not tempted by the lure of office. He devoted his time and energy to educating the people for the forthcoming civil disobedience movement. Gandhiji was to commence his Satyagraha on 12th March from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi along with 78 other followers. Vallabhbhai was going ahead of Gandhiji to rouse the people and prepare them for civil disobedience. He told them not to be afraid of jails; but to join the struggle in large numbers and to fill the prisons.
When he had gone to address one such meeting at Ras on March 7 he was restrained by the magistrate from addressing the meeting. As he insisted on making the speech he was arrested before he had uttered a sentence and was sentenced for three months and three weeks imprisonment. By the time when Vallabhbhai was released on 26th June 1930, other leaders from Gujarat and from other provinces were in jail. When Jawaharlal Nehru was arrested Motilal Nehru had been appointed Congress President; and when he was arrested on 13th June 1930, he appointed Vallabhbhai as Congress President. The working committee of Congress and its other organisations and offices had been declared illegal by the government. Responding to a rousing welcome in Bombay after his release, on 3rd July 1930, Vallabhbhai said in an interview—
“I want every single man, woman and child in each province, district and town to feel that he or she should take up the burden of carrying on the national fight if the Congress organisations are declared unlawful and all recognised leaders are put in Jail. Each Congressman then becomes a Congress committee for the purpose of the fight”.
He spoke out openly and unequivocally against those who were vacillating and hesitating to fight. Addressing a large gathering at Bai Kanubhai’s Wadi in Bombay he admonished collegiates for not giving up their studies, while Nehru ‘the prince of Indian youth’ has in jail. In another reprimand to college students he asked them if they know that their idol Jawaharlal has in jail and that hundreds of women were the victims of police lathis and physical ill-treatment in the fight for freedom, while they, the students, stood by idly or spent their time doing mathematics and history. We may take it that the criticism was implicitly also of their leader who could not inspire a better response among his supporters.
That the fight required ‘money and munitions’ rather than big talk was the burden of many of his speeches. His message to Congress workers on the inauguration of Congress week in Bombay on 14th July 1930 indicated clearly that the week was being celebrated to gather men and money. A house-to-house campaign to enroll members and collect money was undertaken by each ward at his behest. It was an opportune moment for him to control the movement. He was out of jail for a short period of time and made political capital out of it.
Patel has again arrested on 1st August for participating in a procession to mark Tilak’s death anniversary. He was released in November 1930 and was served with a prohibitory order against making speeches. He delivered a harmless speech on the opening of a Khadi Bhandar at Bombay. This was quite a good excuse for the government and they arrested him and sentenced him to 9 months imprisonment. But before he could complete his term he was released in March along with other member of the Congress Working Committee so that they could be in Delhi for consultation with Gandhiji who was holding talks with the Viceroy. The outcome of this was the Gandhi-Irwin Pact which was signed on 5th March. According to this pact, all political prisoners were released. The Congress agreed to take part in the second round table conference and called off the civil disobedience movement.
Vallabhbhai became the president of the Congress session which was held in Karachi at the end of March 1931. The youth of the country were agitated, for a day before the Congress session commended, Bhagat Singh had been executed with his two associates, Raj Guru and Sukhdeo for having murdered a police officer, Saunders.
In his presidential address which was brief, concise and to the point, Vallabhbhai said—“You have called a simple farmer to the highest office to which any Indian can aspire”.
The most difficult task of the session was to get the Gandhi-Irwin Pact approved. Vallabhbhai told the youth that he was aware that many young friends were deeply hit by this agreement. He assured them that “if nothing comes out of the conference the struggle would be resumed. That might mean that we allow 6 months to slip away”. He counselled patience to the youth and said, “Gandhiji is now almost 63 years old, I am 56, should we, the old, be anxious for independence or you, the young? Because we are interested in seeing India independent before we die, it is we who are for more anxious, and in a greater hurry than you—why all this impatience’’.
The young men saw reason and passed the resolution approving Gandhi-Irvin Pact. Strongly enough, Jawaharlal Nehru, who was dead against this pact, himself moved the resolution. Thus ended the Karachi Session.
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