![]() ![]() ![]() The principal task of this organisation was to ensure the merger of the vast array of princely states into the nascent Indian Union. As Independence approached, Sardar Patel offered Menon the post of Secretary in the newly formed States Department. In that role, as Basu carefully documents, his impact on the twin processes of the transfer of power and the integration of the princely states was simply inestimable. It traces the arc of the life of a recalcitrant child who fled to work in the Kolar goldfields and eventually rose to the rank of the Secretary to the Government of India. It provides a sweeping account of the extraordinary career of a man who was mostly an autodidact having wilfully dropped out of formal schooling at an early age. That said, this book is the result of painstaking research in multiple archives, the culling of evidence drawn from memoirs and the deft use of oral histories. ![]() Undoubtedly, in the fullness of time, the matter will be effectively resolved and disposed of. It is simply beyond the scope of this brief review to adjudicate the merits of the issue. It has become the subject of a fraught public debate, with prominent historians and politicians alike weighing in. ![]() Menon has stoked a significant controversy because of a few pages where she asserts that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had failed to include Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in the initial cabinet list. ![]()
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