Statue of Unity: An open letter to Sardar Patel by activist Medha Patkar

Your generation was aware of two vices - corruption and communalism. The spirit behind your then sermons is needed today

Respected Sardar Patelji, Namaskar!

Wherever you may be, as our leader of the Freedom Movement, your soul, I know, rests here on the motherland whose beloved son you have always been. Your act of freeing India from the shackles of royal states and estates and of freeing the farmers from the oppressive tax laws of the British regime is unprecedented even to this day. As the first home minister of the first government of Independent India, your firm, non-communal and social approach to the unparalleled violence and the relief work thereafter, was appreciated by none else than Mahatmaji as unique, despite