Vitthalbhai Patel

The Story

Born three years before his brother Vallabhbhai, Vitthalbhai was also a lawyer — and the more radical politician of the two in their youth. He entered the Congress early, was imprisoned during the First World War for seditious speeches, and emerged as one of the most aggressive voices in the national movement.

When Gandhi suspended Non-Cooperation, Vitthalbhai joined C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru in founding the Swaraj Party, which contested the elections of 1923 to enter the legislatures and obstruct the British from within. He was elected to the Central Legislative Assembly and became its President in 1925 — the first person of Bhārat to preside over that house.

From the Assembly he launched scathing attacks on the colonial government, walking out with his party on several occasions and using every procedural weapon to embarrass the empire. He also held office in Bombay as a minister, but the strain of his relentless political life broke his health, and he died in Geneva in 1933, at just sixty — mourned by a nation that had come to see him as the elder Patel who fought with equal fire.