Srinagar, Oct 31 (KNS): Youth leader and President of JKWP payed rich tributes to the iron man of India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his birth anniversary.

Mir said that in 1947, when India gained independence from the Colonial Britain, independent Princely states covered 40% of the area of pre-independence India and constituted 23% of its population. It was a scattered political spectrum and as Naipaul was to years later call it, a wounded civilization.

"No wonder" he said, that "there were so many talks of the Balkan Plan as they (The Imperialists) knew a broken India wouldn't be able to fly past them. A united India, with unapologetic pride in its thousands of years of civilization, with the blessings of its Gods and Goddess, they dreaded" And Sardar Patel, one by one, by persuasion and his unmatched diplomatic skills integrated each one of them. What he achieved was so gigantic that if you compare it to the integration of Europe, things become clear. It took 100 million deaths, and 60 years for 50 states of Europe to form a European Union, which is not even a country.

He further elaborates that a patriotic Kashmiri Indian he like many others also wishes that if it was Sardar Patel's opinion of integrating Kashmir that had taken precedence over Nehru's nativity, so much could have been saved.

However he said that nothing can be gained out of crying over spoilt milk, that Sardars mission will be taken up by thousands of young India including patriotic Kashmiris like him. He further welcomed the initiative of the Lt Governor to teach the stories of great leaders like Patel in the text books of Kashmir. (KNS)