In October 1996, the All India Radio invited (Rafiq Zakaria) to deliver the Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture in New Delhi. A revised and enhanced version of the lecture constitutes (his) book Sardar Patel and Indian Muslims: An Analysis of His Relations with Muslims Before and After India's Partition, published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (BVB), Mumbai ... In his own words (Zakaria) "set down to my task to get at the bottom of the charge that Patel was anti-Muslim" (p.xx). He answers the charge by completely exonerating the Sardar of aggressive anti-Muslim bias. How does Rafiq Zakaria do this? What evidence does he marshal to dispel the Sardar's long standing reputation as an upper cast Hindu bigot? The answer lies in the bibliography (pp. 110-114), which is a virtual list of hagiographies written by Patel's minions. In this slim work, Zakaria has tried to posit that the perceived anti-Muslim bias of Patel is due to the method and manner of the Sardar's actions and speeches and not to its substance. A conclusion such as this is possible because the author has conveniently chosen to be selective about what sources he uses. Thus works critical of Patel's blatant anti-Muslim bias written by the Sardar's contemporaries are conspicuous by their absence.

There are at least four maior asnects of Patel's anti-Muslim bias, whose negative consequences are present to this day. They are: firstly, as Home Minister in August 1947, he provided little or no protection for Muslims in Delhi, East Punjab, Alwar and Bharatpur resulting in their near complete extinction or removal to Pakistan. Maulana Azad's Indian Wins Freedom testified this.

Secondly, as Home Minister between August 1947 and December 1950, he issued a directive to the state home ministers to stop recruitment of Muslims in the police ..

Thirdly, as incharge of State's Ministry looking after Delhi's relations with the Princely States, he took a hardline against Hyderabad resulting in the bloody "Operation Polo" of September 1948, resulting in a brutal massacre of thousands of innocent Muslims throughout the Deccan. When a delegation of Congressmen led by Pandit Sundarlal (1886-1981) investigated the post-Operation Polo massacres and submitted a report full of horrors, that document was suppressed and never made public. ...

Fourthly, the Home Ministry under his leadership, introduced the infamous "permit system" under which Muslims merely visiting Pakistan were not allowed to come back to the places of their birth, which deprived thousands of people of their citizenship ...

Fifthly, ... as the Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Minorities of the Constituent Assembly of 1946-50 ...he bullied Begum Aizaz Rasul (b. 1909), then an inexperienced woman of barely 40 to introduce a resolution asking for the abolition of separate electorate (sic). ...

Zakaria is not the first Muslim apologist for Patel. Late Professor Moin Shakir (d. 1987) of the Marathwada University in Aurangabad did precisely so on the pages of New Quest, Pune volume 13, January-February 1979): 17- 24 under the same title as the Zakaria book ... Zakaria has carefully avoided some of the Sardar's own fulminations against Muslims (and praised for the) RSS ... (Not) surprising that the Hindutva brigade considers the Sardar as one of their own. Zakaria's book fails to whitewash Patel's dark record of anti-Muslim misdeeds ... One is tempted to wait for Zakaria's apologies for Nathuram Godse, M.S. Golwalkar, L.K. Advani and Bal Thackeray.                                   (Source: The Radiance Viewsweekly, 12-18 July, 1998)