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The facade and interiors of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation headquarters at Mahanagarpalika Marg in Fort, South Mumbai. Pics/MAyank Shekhar

If you aren’t a history buff, unlikely that you’ve heard of the UK-trained barrister, freedom fighter, Vithalbhai Patel, who passed away in Geneva, aged 60, in 1933. 

The nation went into deep mourning then, with reports of “shops shuttering, thousands gathered at meetings all over India.”

My one memory of him is from the shoddily edited biopic, Ketan Mehta’s Sardar (1993), where you watch the eponymous Vallabhbhai Patel (later India’s first home minister) scoff at Mahatma Gandhi in a gymkhana scene, and then join him right after, when he’s introduced to the Mahatma by his brother.

Vithalbhai was Vallabhbhai’s brother, elder by a couple of years. 

The second time I heard mention of Vithalbhai, recently, was inside the main hall of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) headquarters, where the city’s corporators deliberate on civic issues, seated in concentric circles. Much like the Indian parliament.

There’s a big portrait of Vithalbhai in there. He headed the BMC as Bombay’s mayor, 1923-25 — shortly after 1919 Montague-Chelmsford reforms, that gave Indians greater representation in municipal governance. 

Vithalbhai........

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