Do You Hate Mondays?

It’s Sunday morning. My alarm is off. The sun is peeking through the blinds, but instead of getting up, I roll over into my husband’s arms and fall back asleep. I don’t get out of bed until I feel like it. Later, I put on some great music, make French toast, and enjoy a lovely brunch. The rest of the day unfolds without a to-do list or any feelings of obligation to anyone.

Why can’t every day be like this?

At first, my logical mind jumps in with the status quo answer:

If every day were like Sunday, you would be broke, hungry, and homeless. You wouldn’t have a job, and you wouldn’t be able to afford your rent. Plus, you’d be terribly bored. Do you really want to sleep in and eat French toast every day?

Sometimes I think I would.

Lately, I’ve been contemplating the idea of time and the five-day workweek that holds many of us hostage. Who came up with the idea of a five-day workweek anyway? Does it have something to do with the biblical notion that it took God six days to create the universe, and only the seventh day was reserved for rest?

I recently started watching Downton Abbey (which I was skeptical about at first but have since grown to enjoy). The stars of the show (members of an aristocratic British family) view having a job as something below them. Even doctors and lawyers are considered middle class because they have to work. In one episode, the matriarch of the family is speaking with a lawyer, who says that he enjoys going to the country on the weekend. She looks puzzled and asks, “What is a weekend?”

She might have been responding facetiously, but still, her answer made me think.

Why do we make a distinction between the workweek and the weekend? And would it be possible to live a life where the two become one?

Jump out of your conditioning and really think about this for a moment. The five-day workweek is a completely human creation. There is absolutely no logical reason why we have to work for five days and only get two days off. But many of us fall into this pattern even when we don’t have to.

I’ll use myself as an example. For the past three years of my professional life, I’ve been flying solo—first as an entrepreneur and now as a postdoctoral research fellow. I have no fixed schedule in either of these roles. As an entrepreneur, I could work whatever hours I wanted, whenever I wanted, from home. As a postdoc, my supervisor has told me on multiple occasions that he doesn’t care where I work or when I work, as long as the work gets done. I have absolute freedom with regard to my schedule.

But guess what? I still tend to subscribe to the nine to five.

Monday to Friday, I wake up at 6:30 a.m. (even though I could sleep until noon if I wanted). I make a healthy breakfast, meditate, and head to work. I’m usually at my desk by nine; I take an hour lunch break, and I leave at around five.

Lately I’ve been asking myself, why?

Why do I only make French toast on Sundays?
Why do I only give myself permission to take my time on the weekend?
Why have I (and so many others) enshrined the nine to five grind?

I don’t really have an answer.

Perhaps it’s because humans love routine. We’re habitual creatures, and old habits die hard. I’m sure it’s also healthy to get up at the same time every day, eat well, and get plenty of rest by going to bed at the same time every night. Maybe it’s true that we would be bored without this routine. Maybe working hard during the week helps us appreciate the weekend.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that weekends feel awesome. And I want every day to feel awesome.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my work. But I also enjoy getting away from the computer and taking in everything else that life has to offer. I don’t think humans are meant to sit at desks for eight hours a day in artificial light. I don’t think cubicles are designed to promote happiness.

So what is the solution?

The nine to five is a perfect fit for some people, and that’s great. For the rest of us, I think we need to be courageous enough to buck the system. I already did this once, when I left my cubicle in 2010. But I’ve realized that I’m going to continually need to do this, to prove to myself and others that it is possible to do what you love, make money, and not have to subscribe to a five-day workweek.

Let’s be honest. The minute I say, “Screw the nine to five!” many of you experience a jolt of fear straight through your heart. This fear is about money. You most likely think, “Without the nine to five, I won’t be able to afford my house or send my kids to college.”

I encourage you to bust out of this traditional line of thinking. There are examples of people all over the world who don’t subscribe to a typical workweek but who live very comfortably. Or who live very modestly but are insanely happy.

Why do you feel as though this life is only reserved for a chosen few?

Why not you, too?

Seriously question your beliefs about what it means to live a happy, comfortable life. Don’t force yourself into a box—or a cubicle—just because the robots around you are doing so. The world wants and needs your gifts. Have the courage to put these gifts out there.

As for me, I’m setting an intention to experience more Sundays. I know that this is going to be uncomfortable at first. I’m going to feel like I should be producing and achieving instead of relaxing. But I’ll just close my eyes, take a bite of my French toast, and allow myself to ease into the day and break out of my routine.

What about you?

 

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Apple

Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007.

Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook Air) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod, the iPhone (now available for sale in over 90 countries), and the iPad.

Recent Milestones

• 
  Apple acquired WiFiSLAM for $20M. (3/24/13)
  Posted 3/23/13 at 10:07pm via techcrunch.com
• 
  Apple acquired Particle. (10/18/12)
  Posted 10/17/12 at 9:20pm via techcrunch.com
• 
  Apple — Apple’s $707M, U.S. Sales Ban Filings Against Samsung Underscore One Of Apple’s Biggest Concerns (9/23/12) ³⁶
  Posted 9/23/12 at 6:35pm via techcrunch.com
• 
  Apple — Apple Stock Crosses $700 Per Share After Hours On The Strength Of iPhone 5 (9/17/12) ³⁷
  Posted 9/17/12 at 7:45pm via techcrunch.com
• 
  Apple — Apple Awarded $1.049 Billion In Damages As Jury Finds Samsung Infringed On Design And Software Patents (8/24/12) ³⁸
  Posted 8/24/12 at 10:05pm via techcrunch.com
• 
  Apple acquired AuthenTec for $356M. (7/27/12)
  Posted 7/27/12 at 5:03am via venturebeat.com
• 
  Apple — Apple Now Has 150 Million iCloud Users (7/24/12) ³⁹
  Posted 7/24/12 at 7:01pm via techcrunch.com
• 
  Apple added Hemanth Mantri as Summer Intern. (5/21/12)
  Posted 4/6/12 at 3:49pm
• 
  Apple added Michael Hintze as User Experience . (5/1/12)
  Posted 3/7/13 at 10:30pm
• 
  Apple added Angela Baxley as User Experience. (5/1/12)
  Posted 1/10/13 at 10:49pm
• 
  Apple added Karandeep Chawla as Specialist. (4/12/12)
  Posted 3/4/13 at 9:57am
• 
  Apple acquired Chomp. (2/23/12)
  Posted 2/23/12 at 6:14pm via techcrunch.com
• 
  Apple added Xande Macedo as Product Designer. (2/1/12)
  Posted 3/6/12 at 9:24pm
• 
  Apple invested in ELAN Microelectronics. (1/5/12)
  Posted 1/5/12 at 4:29am via techcrunch.com
• 
  Apple added Faisal Yaqub as Software Engineer. (1/1/12)
  Posted 12/2/12 at 6:33pm
• 
  Apple acquired Anobit Technologies for $450M. (12/13/11)

Read more: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/apple#ixzz2RJ4YgrSp
Follow us: @crunchbase on Twitter | crunchbase on Facebook

 

56 Inspirational Picture Quotes That Will Motivate Your Mind, Body & Soul

(Images) 56 Inspirational Picture Quotes That Will Motivate Your Mind

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Why don’t Bees Teleconference while Building a HIVE?

What do pack of wolves, pride of lionesses, bees and ants have in common. What can we learn from them? What is self-organization (SO) and how does it form?

We are exploring different ways to induce this behavioral skill in the team members for greater commitment, motivation and accountability to the work. Many of us think, what is so great about it; we are self-organized and perform our daily course without fail. But, the question is can we perform equally well in a project, during crisis or with reduced resources.

NATURE has tuned the self-organized system. Be it the conduct of animals, insects, or eco-system, nature organizes optimally. What are the attributes of self-organization derived from the nature?  Can project teams organize themselves, the way nature does? Is it meaningful to compare the dynamism of NATURE with the dynamism that organizational teams face?

Before finding answers, let’s understand with few examples how self-organization is an adaptive attribute in animals and insects. Imagine how the pack of animals like wolves and lionesses hunt? How honey bees organize their affairs so well in their hive and devote themselves to the welfare and survival of their colony?

Wolves are known for their intelligence and social behavior. They organize themselves for the hunt and care of their group. The motive of the pack is to be as successful as possible, no matter if they are not the strongest one. The whole objective is to make their hunt a success so that every member can get the sufficient food. Each wolf in the pack plays a role. There is always a leader in the herd (pack) but while hunting, it rarely interferes or directs its fellow animals (Michael, Wolf., 1995-2005). Another interesting thing about them is their sense of communication; they follow communication protocol and communicate in many ways (body language, gesture, and expression). The selection of communication mean is highly dependent on the distance between the two wolves. If they are close to each other the communication is non-vocal. Similarly when they are in large group, they do ‘Mob-greetings’.

They share a common objective – food for the pack. They have communication protocols and established patterns for hunting, individuals know how to respond to change to meet the objective. Their play mirrors the hunt patterns.

Let’s see how bees organize themselves and find the flower nectar. Bees are deaf hence they perform a series of movements called as ‘waggle dance‘. These dancing steps help to identify the source of nectar and also teach other workers about the location of food source 150 meters away from the hive. The bees have orchestrated movements for communication. Especially when they are hunting for flower nectar, the experienced bees walks straight ahead, vigorously shaking its abdomen and producing a buzzing sound with the beat of its wings (Debbie, 2011). The distance and speed of this movement communicates the distance of the food site to the other bees. Another exciting aspect is the group size, the bees’ colony size varies from 20000 to 80000 worker bees and they all work in coordination with each other without much direction and guidance.

The above examples of honey bees too display those benefits of the self-organization concepts discussed above. Adherence to shared objective set of practices, pattern of behavior, and communication. They show the benefits of self-organization, i.e. commitment, efficiency, and achieving self-sufficiency for the community.  Members of the community organize themselves repeatedly and continuously to meet changing requirements.

In a Direct communications with partners, iterative processes helps control conflicting interests and help them to adapt quickly to unpredictable and rapidly changing environments (Monterio et al., 2011).

• In a research conducted by Hoda et al. (2011), it was proved that “balancing freedom and responsibility, balancing cross-functionality and specialization, balancing continuous learning and iteration pressure uphold the fundamental conditions of self-organization at certain level.”

Agile manifesto stresses on self-organizing teams, and we explored what techniques make the teams achieve a sense of teamness and spontaneous adaptability which makes it work in short sprints and what will make it work in the long run. In subsequent blogs we will learn how the concepts of self-organization can be brought in a structured manner and help teams adapt in a changing environment. The resulting framework would help us in recognizing when SO can be formed or in creating the right environment for it.

Our goal is to deconstruct the key concepts of the above examples and apply them in real teams to make it spontaneous and easy to transform into a self-organizing team. Support for the concepts comes from couple of papers we looked at.

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FORD F SERIES QATAR

English: 1953 Ford F-100 pickup truck Category:Ford F-100 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

FORD F SERIES QATAR

 

The FORD F series Pickups in Qatar are slowly yet steadily becoming one of the top scorers in car market of Qatar. These pickups are well known in the Qatar markets for their enhanced utility and sheer performance. Their sales jumped 194% in the month of December in 2012 and the series became one of the most popular in Qatar. The brand of Ford has been counting on the series to challenge the Toyota and its monopolization in the Qatar car market. The F series defeated all other cars of Ford series to secure 6^th position in the month of December in number of sold pieces in Qatar.

 

The body built of the F series vehicle is absolutely brilliant. It is delight to drive. The car has been one of the most popular and successful cars in the history of United States and Canada. The car comes with front engine. It is a full size pickup meant for all utility purposes. The Ford F series recorded a sale of 420 units in the year 2012. The annual growth in sales was recorded at 2.7%. The F series stood at number 43 in the annual list of top car sales in Qatar.

 

The car market in Qatar is defined by the combination of comfort, luxury, performance and smooth riding experience. And Ford has been trying to add the factor of utility to the list and has been partially successful with this F series. The F series was able to challenge pure luxury SUV’s like Camry and other Nissan Sedans. The rate of increase in the Car sales in Qatar is brilliant and with the present pace, it has the potential to become one of the largest markets for luxury cum utility vehicles. And Ford F series will surely be a top scorer in the Qatar car market.

 

Social Networks by Revenue and Employees, Facebook Stands Above All

Above: Facebook’s employees hard at work in the open working conditions 

As an Industry Analyst my role is to identify trends, market forecasts and publish my findings in research reports. As such, Industry Analysts are different than Financial Analysts, which I’m not. While I cite where I’ve found the data in the comments, I can’t ascertain the accuracy of some of these sometimes 3rd party data sources. Note that the 2012 revenues are reported at a different time from the employee headcount was likely reported (Q1, 2013) The following is not to be considered for investment purposes.

With that caveat behind us, the following analysis takes into consideration the following consumer and public facing consumer social networks.  To see enterprise class and business social business software vendors, see my additional posts on VCs and investing. While many of these startups did not have public available data, I conduct a breakdown of these startups:

Automattic (WordPress), Branch, Digg, Facebook, Foursquare, Gowalla, Groupon, Instagram, LinkedIn, LivingSocial, Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat, Tumblr, Twitter, Yelp, and Zynga.  Here’s what I found:

2012 Revenue Per Employee
Comparing both revenue per employee, rate, we found some amazing efficiencies, in particular with Facebook, Zynga, and WordPress. Here’s a data table comparing the 2012 reported revenue over employee headcount, found from online public data.

Company	2012 Reported Revenues	Employees	Revenue Per Employee
Facebook	$5,089,000,000	4,619	$1,101,753
Zynga	$1,281,267,000	2,916	$439,391
Twitter	$350,000,000	900	$388,888
Automattic (WordPress)	$45,000,000	150	$300,000
LinkedIn	$972,309,000	3,458	$281,176
Groupon	$2,330,000,000	10,000	$233,000
LivingSocial	$536,000,000	4,500	$119,111
Yelp	$137,600,000	1,214	$113,344
Tumblr	$13,000,000	151	$86,092
Foursquare	$2,000,000	100	$20,000
Nasdaq 100: See how other companies fare	Varies	Varies	Varies

Update: There are many comments coming in about Foursquare revenue, please see comment section, there is additional insights on fundraising, and their focus.

Facebook shows highest revenue per employee
As reported by public available data, Automattic, Zynga, Twitter, and Facebook are all making over $300k per employee, with tech salaries often ranging in 100k range, with additional costs, 300k is a benchmark number for revenue per employee that I often look for. For comparison, Facebook is pushing over $1m per employee, compared to Google (50b revenue for 53k reported employees) is about the same, at $946k per employee.  While WordPress team has a modest $45m their internal revenue per employee stands toe to toe with the big dogs.

Overall industry revenues in billions of dollars
Of these consumer social network, only eight had publically available revenue run rates for 2013, on average, they’re forecasting $3.7b. In total, they’re estimating revenues of $8.3b.  Last year, in 2012, ten of the consumer social network sites had publicly available revenues, which amount of $10.7 billion global revenues, averaged across the ten is $1.7b.

Some social networks boast rapid climb in revenues
These startups saw a rapid climb in revenues, on average these companies started in 2006, just seven years ago.  There were some startling accelerations in revenues, with Facebook achieving $5b in revenues in 8 years, reported by 2012 public revenues. While under business model scrutiny and executive change-up, Groupon started in 2008 and achieved $2.3b in revenues in four years reported in 2012.  Even with this acceleration, Facebook is still far behind Google, which boasts revenues of $50b in 13 years since inception.

Not all startups created equal, some have modest revenues
Many companies are no where near the $1b annual mark, in fact, several players are not on a growth trajectory.  Of the lower revenue performers of the group includes: Foursquare, (a low yield of $2m in revenues 2012), Tumblr blogging software ($13m revenues in 2012), and long time Automattic, the makers of WordPress ($45m revenues in 2012).

Industry workforce, over 28k professionals
We can’t look at revenues alone, as these numbers don’t take costs into accounts, and found that LivingSocial employs 4,500, and surprisingly, Groupon employs a whopping 10,000 employees.  All together, across these 17 consumer social networks, they employed 28,177 professionals.   Obviously, this number doesn’t take into account 3rd party software like social media management systems (SMMS) and digital agencies, consultants, and of course, industry analyst firms.

 

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It’s Not Going to Turn out the Way You Thought

It will happen later. His best friend will ask you out instead. You’ll be kissed in the movies instead of on a beach. You’ll end up going to a different school because the one you thought you’d get into didn’t work out.

She’ll move away. Someone else will move in next door. She’ll be a little weird at first, a little more shy, but, ultimately, really good at riding bikes and playing dolls.

That part you always wanted will go to that other girl instead. And you’ll rock it out in the chorus like your life depended on it. Because on some level, it does.

The road you were going to take will be flooded and closed. The inn where you were going to stay will be under renovation. He’ll be taller than you thought. And have a funny accent. But will be a good kisser nonetheless.

You’ll get a flat tire on the way to that crucial meeting and end up peeing your pants laughing with the gas station attendant over a copy of Us Magazine. And someone else will fill in for you because they always do.

You won’t get that dream job like you thought you would. It will go to someone else with far less creative drive and vision than you. Someone far better suited for a cubicle than you.

You’ll be put in groups with people who put your panties in a wrinkle. You’ll sit next to someone on the plane who you’d never talk to except that they won’t shut up. And you’ll end up staying in touch for years and taking family vacations together.

Five years after you graduate, life won’t look anything like you would have imagined. You’ll be single when you thought you’d be married. You’ll have kids when you thought you’d be in the Peace Corps. That trip to Laos will get delayed because you’ve got to stay home and take care of your grandmother. Laos will be there. You’re grandmother won’t always.

He’ll move overseas, and, oddly, the Atlantic Ocean between you will bring you closer than you ever dreamed possible. You won’t get engaged, married, or pregnant when you thought. You’ll miss the bus/train/plane/ferry that you thought you just HAD to be on.

You’ll fall off the turnip truck. You’ll jump on a different bandwagon than you intended. You’ll get fired when you thought you ought to be getting hired.

You’ll realize you forgot the outfit you had planned to wear and that the shoes are all wrong now that you have a full-length mirror to see the whole outfit. Your shirt will be wrinkled, and you’ll spill red wine on your white jeans.

Your dog will eat your five-year plan. You’ll drop your Blackberry in the toilet (at least once). Your computer will crash, and you’ll delete the first draft of your magnum opus. You’ll accidentally delete your hard drive and end up with a clean slate.

You’ll show up late to the date with the guy you were sure was going to fit into your husband suit and realize he’s less than graceful under stress and not so flexible. (Better to know now than later.)

When you thought you’d be baking pie and living behind your very own white picket fence, you’ll find yourself doing something so entirely different you couldn’t have even imagined it a year before.

There will be moments when you’ll look around and not even recognize your own life…in a good way.

You’ll take a wrong turn and end up in an entirely different city than you intended. You’ll dial the wrong number and end up in love with an entirely different person than you intended.

You’ll flunk out and end up taking five years instead of four to graduate. You’ll have your heart broken when you were sure you were with the one, and then meet the other one a month later. You’ll move to a new city to start a new business with those perfect new business partners, and then it will all go to shit. And you’ll move across the country again, only to realize that that’s where you belonged the whole time.

You’ll drive as far away from home as possible, thinking that it will make you feel free. Then you’ll get homesick and drive back four months later because you suddenly feel trapped.

You’ll imagine the open road, country music playing loud, you signing at the top of your lungs, and flirting with a new man in every town. And then you’ll invite someone to come with you on a whim and realize driving around the country by yourself was a terrible idea anyway, and that it’s way more fun when you’re traveling with someone you love.

You won’t do it at the right time.

You’ll be late.

You’ll be early.

You’ll get re-routed.

You’ll get delayed.

You’ll change your mind.

You’ll change your heart.

It’s not going to turn out the way you thought it would.

It will be better.

 

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Myth 5: Nehru imposed a centralised, “Stalinist” model of economic development on India, thus setting us back by decades.

Jawaharlal Nehru, circa 1927 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jawaharlal Nehru at Harrow, where he was also known as Joe Nehru. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jawaharlal Nehru 1949 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is a myth promoted by those who favour quicker and greater liberalisation of the economy. In truth, there was a widespread consensus on the import-substituting model of economic development followed by India after independence.

Not just Russia, but Japan and Germany were held up as examples in this regard. For one thing, the experience of colonisation had made Indians wary of the excessive and sometimes pernicious influence of foreign capital. For another, Indian industry itself demanded protection as well as state support and subsidy. Indeed, the Bombay Plan of 1944, signed by all the major capitalists of the time, called for active state intervention in sectors such as power, water, transport, mines, and the like — pleading that since the capitalists did not have the resources to develop these sectors, the state was duty-bound to do so.

This is not an argument about the respective merits of free trade versus closed trade and capital regimes. It is an argument about why we chose the path of industrialisation that we did. And the answer is this — because industrialists, scientists, economists and politicians, of all stripes and ideologies, by-and-large concurred with Nehru. Or rather, Nehru concurred with them.

No man was more adored in his lifetime than Jawaharlal Nehru, no man more vilified since his death. The vilification rests, in good part, on myths spread by the motivated and swallowed by the credulous. And the adoration? What did it rest on? I shall provide the answer, or at any rate my answer, in a future column.

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Myth 4: Nehru was “autocratic”.

Mahatma Gandhi & Pope John (Photo credit: MusMs)

Gandhi with Nehru in 1929. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jawaharlal Nehru University (Photo credit: Saire Elizabeth)

Jawaharlal Nehru at Harrow, where he was also known as Joe Nehru. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium Station Entrance (Photo credit: varunshiv)

Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium Station Entrance (Photo credit: varunshiv)

हिन्दी: ताजमहल English: Taj Mahal, Agra, India. Deutsch: Taj Mahal im indischen Agra. Español: Vista del Taj Mahal, Agra, India. Français : Le Taj Mahal, à Âgrâ, en Inde. Русский: Мавзолей Тадж-Махал, Агра, Индия. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A.K.Sen with Nehru (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Birth place of Mahatma Gandhi, Porbandar, India. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Deutsch: Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948), politischer und spiritueller Führer von Indien. Ort unbekannt English: Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948), political and spiritual leader of India. Location unknown. Français : Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), Guide politique et spirituel de l'Inde. Lieu inconnu. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium Station Entrance (Photo credit: varunshiv)

This myth is given credence by Nehru‘s not having close friends, and by his failure to name a successor.

It is true that Nehru could appear superior, not least to his colleagues in party and government. They did not share his cosmopolitan outlook, nor his interest in art, music, literature, or science. But no one did more than Nehru to nurture the values and institutions of democracy in India. It was he who first advocated adult suffrage, he who welcomed a constructive Opposition, he who scrupulously maintained the independence of the bureaucracy and the judiciary. Vincent Sheean once pointed to “one overwhelming difference between Mahatma Gandhi and Mr. Nehru: the Mahatma would rather retire, fast, pray, take care of lepers and educate children, than go along with a majority opinion in which he could not concur”. Nehru, on the other hand, had in many instances “yielded to the majority of his party and of the country… “. Thus Congress Chief Ministers were always elected by the legislators of the concerned state, regardless of Nehru’s opinion in the matter. And once he saw that both party and country wanted it, Nehru yielded to the formation of linguistic states — a policy he was personally opposed to.

Nehru chose not to nominate a successor because he felt that was the prerogative of the people and their representatives. After his death, an otherwise bitter critic, D. F. Karaka, saluted this determination “not to indicate any preference with regard to his successor. This, (Nehru) maintained, was the privilege of those who were left behind. He himself was not concerned with that issue” — thus, incidentally, giving the lie to the idea that he ever wanted his daughter to succeed him.

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Five myths about Nehru- Part 3 Myth 3: Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel were opponents and adversaries and Legacy of Nehru Gandhi Dynasty

Gandhi and Nehru (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gandhi and Nehru and refugees from the partition (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

An Image of Mangal Pandey created by the uploader and User:Krantmlverma from the Portrate made by his Daughter Alpana Aditya (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jawaharlal Nehru, circa 1927 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A portrait of Sardar Patel on his 74th birthday, 1949. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jawaharlal Nehru (Photo credit: Phillie Casablanca)

This myth is promoted by advocates of a “strong” India, by those who believe that Nehru was soft on Pakistan, soft on China, and soft on the minorities. It is usually accompanied by a subsidiary myth, namely, that Patel would have made a “better” Prime Minister than Nehru.

In truth, Nehru and Patel worked superbly as a team — they were the duumvirate who, in the first, formative years of independence, effectively united and strengthened India. Of course, they differed by temperament and ideology. But these differences were subsumed and transcended by commitment to a common ideal: namely, a free, united, secular and democratic India. There were some things Nehru could do better than Patel — communing with the masses, relating to the world, assuring vulnerable groups (such as Muslims, tribals and Dalits) that they enjoyed equal rights with other Indians. There were some things Patel could do better than Nehru — dealing with the princes, nurturing the Congress party, carrying along dissidents in the Constituent Assembly. Each knew the other’s gifts, each took care not to trespass on the other person’s turf. That is how, together, they built India anew out of the ruins of Partition.

The myth of their rivalry is best answered in their own words. After Gandhi died, Nehru wrote to Patel of how “the old controversies ceases to have much significance and it seems to me that the urgent need of the hour is for all of us to function as closely and co-operatively as possible”. In all the years they had worked together, said Nehru, “my affection and regard for you has grown, and I do not think anything can happen to lessen this. … Anyway, in this crisis that we have to face now after Bapu‘s death I think it is my duty and, if I may venture to say, yours also for us to face it together as friends and colleagues”.

Patel, in reply, spoke of how he was “deeply touched, indeed overwhelmed, by the affection and warmth of your letter… “. He went on: “We have both been lifelong comrades in a common cause. The paramount interest of our country and our mutual love and regard, transcending such differences of outlook and temperament as existed, have held us together”. And Gandhi’s death had only awakened “a fresh realisation of how much we have achieved together and the need for further joint efforts in our grief-stricken country’s interests”.

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