Dahyabhai V. Patel

Dahyabhai Vallabhbhai Patel was a Rajya Sabha member and the son of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. He sat on the Parliamentary Committee on the Demand for Punjabi Suba of 1965 to 1966 and wrote the eighth and last of the notes added to its report.

Wikipedia gives his birth as 28 November 1905 and his death in Bombay on 11 August 1973. He was a Congressman who served on Bombay's municipal corporation and as Mayor of Bombay in 1954 and 1955, left the Congress in 1957 over disagreements with Jawaharlal Nehru, and was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1958. The committee's report lists him among its Rajya Sabha members.

His note. The note is dated 17 March 1966, two days after the report was adopted. In it he wrote:

• He regretted that outbreaks of violence in Punjab, with many lives lost, had come while the Committee was still deliberating. He blamed the confused way of thinking and mishandling of the situation by the Government both in Punjab and at the Centre.
• He thought the way the Committee was formed and conducted was likely to result in trouble, said he had repeatedly pleaded to go a little slower, and felt out of step with the Committee.
• He objected to its procedure. The first meeting, due on a Monday, was called on the Saturday before to suit the Cabinet Sub-Committee; members gave their views before seeing the representations; and the Punjab Government was heard last.
• Because his father's name had been used several times, and words about a state administered by the Sikhs quoted, he had asked for the Maharaja of Patiala to be called as a witness to explain the context. He said the request went unheeded.
• He wrote that having himself advocated a separate State of Gujarat on a linguistic basis, he could not oppose any linguistic minority's wish for a separate State, but that the Committee had been given no proper explanation of why the Regional Formula was not given a fair trial.

The Chairman, Hukam Singh, added a note dated 18 March 1966. It says the member raised the same points several times, that he explained the position each time and other members also tried to, but that the member did not seem satisfied.

What he is remembered for. In the story of Punjabi Suba he is the committee member who put on record, in the report itself, that he felt out of step with it.