Vithalbhai Jhaverbhai Patel
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A brief biography
Chakshu Roy, August 15, 2021: The Times of India
In August of 1925, there was excitement in Simla. Members of the legislative assembly were in town to participate in the session of the national legislature. The session’s highlight was the election for the presiding officer of the assembly. The Government of India Act of 1919 had set up the 141-member assembly and appointed its first presiding officer (the President which is the equivalent of the modernday Speaker) for a four-year term. For the first time, there was going to be an election for the position of President.
The candidate opposing the government nominee was Vithalbhai Jhaverbhai Patel, the elder brother of Vallabhbhai Patel. He was a lawyer who had frustrated the government with his interventions in provincial and national legislatures. In a closely contested election, Vithalbhai won with a margin of two votes a month before his 52nd birthday. Over the next five years, he would lay the foundation on which legislatures in India would function and flourish after independence.
When he assumed office, President Patel continued wearing his usual dress of khadi and dhoti. His biographer recounts that he went ahead with the parliamentary tradition of wearing a wig and a robe but made of khadi. His robe was fashioned out of a black khadi silk saree presented by Sarojini Naidu. The first task before Vithalbhai was to secure respect for the office of the presiding officer.
The prevailing tradition was that when the Viceroy came to deliver his annual address to the legislature, the presiding officer vacated the chair and sat with the assembly members. The implication being that even in the legislature, the Viceroy was supreme. Vithalbhai put an end to this practice, and at the following annual address, he conducted the Viceroy to a dais and kept his chair.
He also ensured that assembly members had an adequate opportunity to hold the government to account. In his five-year tenure, he allowed discussion of 20-plus adjournment motions. He would also brook no disrespect of the legislature. When the Commander in Chief was absent from the House during a debate on his speech, Vithalbhai observed that it was highly discourteous to the House, prompting the commander to explain his absence to Vithalbhai.
In the President’s chair, Vithalbhai was unbiased and upheld parliamentary conventions. His ruling on the government’s repressive Public Safety bill (which gave the government power to detain suspects without trial) is one such example. When the first bill came up in the assembly, there was an equality of votes. President Patel had the casting vote, and he exercised it to defeat the bill. He followed the parliamentary tradition that the presiding officer vote to favour the status quo.
Smarting from the defeat, the government again brought the bill to the assembly. This time a member objected that the government had filed cases against 31 individuals and discussing cases pending before the court was not permissible under the rules. Vithalbhai ruled that discussion on the bill would violate the sub judice rule, and he could not allow such a violation. The venue for these discussions was the current Lok Sabha chamber.
Bhagat Singh expressed public resentment about this bill by throwing two bombs from the visitor’s gallery into the assembly chamber. After this incident, without consulting President Patel, the government made security arrangements in the assembly complex. Vithalbhai believed that whatever happened in the precincts of the assembly should be done with the approval of the presiding officer.
The deadlock and subsequent conversations on this issue between President Patel and the Viceroy led to the Watch and Ward service, which transformed into the Parliament Security Service. Vithalbhai was also instrumental in setting up the independent parliamentary secretariat. He believed that an independent and impartial administration responsible to the presiding officer was a requirement for the functioning of the legislature.
When Vithalbhai became the president of the central assembly, he declared, “From this moment I cease to be a party man. I belong to no party. I belong to all parties.” His is the only portrait that adorns the Lok Sabha chamber facing the chair of the Speaker. His presence should constantly remind our parliamentarians about their responsibility to the constitution and people.
