The brother benefiting the most from Vallabh’s helpfulness was the one born just before him: the brilliant Vithalbhai Patel, also a hero of our freedom movement, who would die from illness in 1933 in Europe, after Subhas Bose had nursed him there. Earlier, from 1925 to 1930, when the British were in control, Vithalbhai had served as the president of what was called the Central Legislative Assembly (CLA). Although enjoying prestige, this CLA had no powers.

Much prior to that, Vithal and Vallabh had travelled, one after the other, from Gujarat’s Borsad town, where the brothers were formidable pleaders, all the way to London to become barristers. Diligently saving money, Vallabh had quietly obtained from Thomas Cook & Son, the travel company, a passport as well as passage on a ship to England. Addressed, quite properly, to “V.J. Patel, Pleader, Borsad”, the envelope containing the documents was taken by the postman to the home of Vithal, who too was “V.J. Patel, Pleader, Borsad”. “As your older brother,” said Vithal to Vallabh, “I cannot go to England after you. I will go with your passport and your ticket.”

Not only did Vallabh agree, he said he would pay for Vithal’s expenses in London and, in addition, look after Vithal’s wife, Diwaliba, in Borsad. Four years later, in 1910, Vallabh travelled himself to London, performed outstandingly there, and returned in 1912 as a barrister.

“Even from jail, and before he was approached, Sardar would help freedom-fighters and look after their medical needs,” Morarji Desai told me in Mumbai in April 1987, when I interviewed him for my Patel biography. The heart of the ‘Iron Man’ was moved by the hardships of fellow-fighters.

Very few today know that one of the greatest landmarks of Patel’s life was how, in July 1927, he inspired and mobilised the people of Ahmedabad and adjacent areas against a severe storm that lasted for seven continuous days. Patel was then the president of the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee and president also of the Ahmedabad Municipal Council. Surprised and impressed by Patel’s success in organising relief, officials of the Raj probed his interest in a suitable title. Loud laughter was his response. A ‘Sir Vallabhbhai’ would have tickled many then and later, but the son born to Kheda district’s Jhaverbhai and Ladba Patel was destined to leave for posterity the image of a stronger, more grounded, and more consequential character.

When in the mid-1920s — a century ago, that is — Patel ‘ran’ Ahmedabad, Jawaharlal Nehru was ‘running’ Allahabad the same way, heading its municipal council. Those were the interregnum years between the Non-cooperation Movement of 1920-22 and the Civil Disobedience Movement of 1930-33. Elsewhere in India, Chittaranjan Das headed the Kolkata municipality, Rajendra Prasad the Patna town council, and Vithalbhai Patel the Mumbai municipality. As a result, lessons were learnt that would prove highly useful when Independence came in 1947.

In 1948, 20 years after Patel had ended his city role, a civic tribute given to him in Mumbai. “You,” free India’s deputy prime minister responded, “have mentioned several achievements. Some I have achieved and some I have not. But one thing I accept without reservation: I served Ahmedabad municipality to the best of my ability. I had unalloyed happiness... Tackling the dirt of the city (gives) you a good night’s rest. Tackling politics keeps you disturbed even at night.”

Departure from city duties freed Vallabhbhai for his extraordinary leadership of the victorious Bardoli Satyagraha of 1928, organised about 270 km south of Ahmedabad in Gujarat’s countryside, where the people gave him his Sardar title.

Although he and Nehru were part of the freedom movement from 1916 if not earlier, Patel’s close teamwork with Jawaharlal began in 1937, when the two toured Gujarat together for a week. Gandhi wrote to Patel: “When you two got together, there was no telling which of you was tougher.”

In subsequent years, there were tensions, misunderstandings, and occasional sharp words between Patel and Nehru. However, friendship, appreciation for the other, loyalty to each other, each’s loyalty to Gandhi, and the bonding from the struggle for freedom, which years in separate prisons had only deepened, were far stronger notes.

And then when freedom came, with all its joys but also with the almost overwhelming convulsions of the Partition that was joined to it, Patel and Nehru realised how fortunate they were to have each other. In January 1950, governor-general Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, then ending his term as free India’s first head of State and making room for our first president, Rajendra Prasad, said: “The Prime Minister and his first colleague, the Deputy Prime Minister, together make a possession which makes India rich in every sense of the term. The former commands universal love, the latter universal confidence.”

Times change. Earlier decades are forgotten. Sustained disinformation does its deadly work. Nehru is maligned. Patel’s statue touches the sky, but real knowledge of his life, thought, and work goes underground.

In these circumstances, one like me who remembers the 1940s and the 1950s, who had opportunities to meet both Patel and Nehru, and who has researched Patel’s life and written his biography, must relate the facts he knows.

I end, therefore, with sentences from an exchange of letters between them. Nehru to Patel, February 3, 1948: “It is over a quarter century since we have closely associated with one another and have faced many storms and perils together. I can say with full honesty that during this period my affection and regard for you have grown...”

Patel to Nehru, February 5, 1948: “We both have been lifelong comrades in a common cause. The paramount interests of our country and our mutual love and regard, transcending such differences of outlook and temperament as existed, have held us together.”

The writer is editor, www.weareonehumanity.org, and author of Patel: A Life. The views expressed are personal