Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

When India became free in 1947, it was made up of more than 500 small kingdoms with their own kings and queens. Someone had to gently but firmly convince them all to join together as one country.

That someone was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Calm, patient and very determined, he talked to each ruler, one by one, and stitched the country together like a great, colourful quilt.

Because of his firm heart, people started calling him the Iron Man of India.

Vallabhbhai Patel was born in 1875 in Gujarat and trained as a lawyer in England. He gave up a busy law practice to join Gandhi's freedom movement, and led the successful Bardoli Satyagraha of 1928, where farmers refused to pay unfair taxes.

Grateful villagers gave him the title 'Sardar', meaning 'leader'.

After Independence in 1947, Sardar Patel became India's first Deputy Prime Minister and first Home Minister. His biggest task was to bring the 562 princely states — from tiny estates to huge kingdoms like Hyderabad, Junagadh and Jammu and Kashmir — into the Indian Union.

Working closely with the civil servant V. P.

Menon, he used a mix of talks, treaties and, when necessary, quick action like 'Operation Polo' in Hyderabad. He also helped set up the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and other all-India services.

The 182-metre tall Statue of Unity, opened in 2018 in Gujarat, is the world's tallest statue and honours his life.