"Marshall Plan versus the Great Society" is a true story of one rural farming family in pre-independence India and its migration, halfway around the world, to the United States for a better life. The author, Vithaldas H. Patel, came to the United States in 1960, for post-graduate studies in engineering at the University of Michigan. When he returned to India, with his wife and two small children, his parents asked him to help his siblings. Patel and his wife reasoned that any amount of direct financial help would be never enogh and never ending. It would also make the recipients dependent on aid, and deprive them of incentives to be self-reliant. Any hand-outs and freebies would be similar to many of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs. The author rejected such direct help. But doing nothing would crush their parents and would be counter to the upbringings of author and his wife. The author and his wife devised a plan to help dozens of members of their families. While the book is a memoir of the author, spanning seven decades, the Mini-Marshall Plan of his family lasted about 25 years. During this period, the author and his wife assisted many of their family members with legal migration to the United States, paid for their travel, and in some cases, for their college education. They helped the new immigrants with employment and housing. As in the Marshall Plan of Europe, the Patel family members were given interest free loans, to be paid when the beneficiary became gainfully employed. The book describes the struggle of a farmer's son beginning in his pre-teens, through his rise to the top of his high school graduating class and finishing his studies at Michigan. The young student and the young couple go through many crises in their lives, learning from each event and becoming more mature. The book also narrates many acts of kindness the author and his family received from thousands of Americans during the past fifty-one years. The book also has a brief history of his native India and, at times, the discussions of Indian and American politics that he witnessed, and his personal transformation from a liberal activist to a center-right conservative.
About the Author: Vithaldas H. Patel was born in the British colony of India. As a child, he witnessed the independence struggle, and later, land reforms and maturing of democracy in India. He studied high school and undergraduate engineering in India. He got married after finishing his studies and came to the United States, in 1960, for post-graduate studies in engineering at the University of Michigan. Throughout his life, as a student, and later, as leader of Patel clan, the author faced many challenges. He overcame the hurdles and learned from it. During their fifty-one years in America, Patel and his wife have received many acts of kindness from individual Americans, Christian churches and educational institutions. The author considers himself blessed and fortunate for witnessing two of the greatest peacefull revolutions of the human history, the indepndence struggle of India and the Civil Rights struggle of the United States. He was the first person from his family to get high school education. His farmer parents could not afford to educate all of their children. However, his parents expected him to help his siblings, and his nieces and nephews. This is when the Marshall Plan of the Patel Family was devised. For nearly a quarter of a century, the legal migration of Patel family was carried out under this plan. By 2011, the family had a dozen physicians, many engineers, pharmacists, RNs, and business owners. Patel practiced engineering in Charlotte, NC for over forty years and retired in 2011. He was active in liberal Democratic Party politics in 1960s and 1970s. Later in life, he became more fiscally conservative. He also actively participated in Asian Indian organizations and Patel groups from his home states of Gujarat, India. "Marshall Plan versus the Great Society" is his first book, in which he demonstrates, by many examples, how he and his wife used incentive based method and ruled out free money, to help dozens of their family members. Patel and his wife, Shobhna, live their retired life in North Carolina. His hobbies include reading, writing, and Bridge games. Her hobby is gardening. Both also travel, socialize and spend lots of time with their four grand-children. They have a daughter and a son, both married and practicing physicians in North Carolina.