Raju Korti
The juvenile but sentimentally exploitative game being played out on the political turf over the statues of national leaders reminds of a popular detergent advertisement on TV where a perplexed character says to another "Bhala aap ki kameez mere kameez se jyada safed?" (How come your shirt is cleaner and whiter than mine?)
Having done practically nothing to merit any worthwhile mention, the Maharashtra government -- often billed as progressive on its past laurels -- recently made it known to people through a cabinet decision that it had earmarked Rs 100 crore to erect a statue of the Maratha warrior king Shivaji off the Mumbai coast. The Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who otherwise is usually tongue-tied, suddenly seemed to have something to boast about. "It will be the tallest statue in the world", he said without letting out any details of how. Not quite surprisingly therefore the announcement was seen as a puerile attempt at countering Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi who not long ago had made a similarly pompous announcement of erecting Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's statue in Gujarat. The message may be veiled but it is clear: "Tumhara Patel hai to hamara Shivaji hai."
Statues may be inanimate objects but they are powerful symbols of public sentiment. In the times of elections these tokens spring to life influencing a large section of unsuspecting voters. When in power, political parties cash in on this sentiment and erect statues of their leaders doling out money from the state exchequer. The statue then attains the status of a shrine. No one dare touch it or shift it elsewhere for hurting popular sentiment. A desecration is often a blessing in disguise since it brings more popular support and sympathy in its wake.
If Modi, the prime minister in waiting, is to be believed, Rs 20 billion will be nationalized on the statue which at 182 meters will not only be the tallest in the world, it will also stand almost twice high as the Statue of Liberty in New York. For the sake of record, the statue to be completed in 42 months will be 30 meters taller than China's Spring Temple Buddha -- currently the tallest at 153 meters -- and will be set on a river island close to the Narmada. An amusement park and a garden will lend a picturesque locale to the place and expected to be a major tourist attraction.
Behind this apparently laudatory move is a deft political manoeuvre to co-opt one of the leading lights of the Indian freedom struggle. This grandeur of thought stands on the rationale that the "World will be forced to look at India when the statue stands tall." The country should be gratified to know that it hasn't occurred to Modi's high-thinking ideology that a statue few hundred meters higher could have been visible in all parts of the world!
In the early eighties, this blog writer was flabbergasted to watch then actor-turned chief minister of Andhra Pradesh NT Rama Rao commissioning 33 repeat 33 well-sculptured bronze statues of people from the region's political and religious history who he believed played an iconic role in the development of Telugu culture. The statues lined on the scenic Tank Bund Road in the capital of Hyderabad do look majestic but it is kind of sobering to know the kind of money NTR government squandered to showcase 'Telugu pride'. In one of his visits to the US, NTR had seen the Statue of Liberty and his starry thinking immediately took fancy to the idea of doing something similar, albeit with his own touch (!) in his home state.
NTR's penchant for such political souvenirs did not rest at that. After a long search he found a solid granite rock on a mountainside 40 kms outside Hyderabad and thereafter, for over a year, hundreds of labourers slogged day in and day out to erect a statue of Buddha that stood 18 meters tall. It was (and still is) world's tallest monolithic statue of Buddha installed on a special platform (interestingly called Rock of Gibralter!) in the middle of the Lake Husain Sagar.
This was all to the good and before the people had stopped marveling at this bombastic idea, the statue tipped and sunk into the lake while it was being carried on a trailer vehicle to be erected on the platform. The accident killed more than ten people. The tragedy was bizarre not only for the way it happened but also for the fact that the architect of the opulent idea, NTR had already been ousted from power by then. For two years, newspapers across the country carried unfailingly reports about the salvage operation that lasted two years and drilled a big hole in the government coffers.
In politically dicey Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati carried this political gaming to the extreme. In her quixotic tenure as the chief minister she erected so many statues of herself and her mentor Kanshi Ram that people finally stopped counting them. Among other things, it led to a huge public outcry and a complaint to the Supreme Court. The self-styled Mayawati couldn't care less that the government treasury was being bled white in one of the least developed but most populous states of the country. These statues are now white elephants, ironically the BSP's political symbol.
Official figures say Mayawati spent over Rs 15 billion on the exercise, which mercifully was cut short or else UP would have seen 10,000 more such statues mushrooming across the state. The best was probably reserved for Noida where reports say 20,000 trees were felled to erect giant statues of Mayawati and Kanshi Ram. The only ones to be happy with the idea were probably the pigeons around the park. Back home in Maharashtra, the embers of the debate on Bal Thackeray's statue in Shivaji Park, Mumbai refuse to die down.
I am sure every time a statue is erected the police probably shit bricks shuddering at the thought of the law and order problem a desecration might create. Do the politicians care about the strident criticism of their politics of statues? The answer is "no".
A statue is not known to have been erected in honour of a critic.
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| Pic only for representation |
Having done practically nothing to merit any worthwhile mention, the Maharashtra government -- often billed as progressive on its past laurels -- recently made it known to people through a cabinet decision that it had earmarked Rs 100 crore to erect a statue of the Maratha warrior king Shivaji off the Mumbai coast. The Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who otherwise is usually tongue-tied, suddenly seemed to have something to boast about. "It will be the tallest statue in the world", he said without letting out any details of how. Not quite surprisingly therefore the announcement was seen as a puerile attempt at countering Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi who not long ago had made a similarly pompous announcement of erecting Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's statue in Gujarat. The message may be veiled but it is clear: "Tumhara Patel hai to hamara Shivaji hai."
Statues may be inanimate objects but they are powerful symbols of public sentiment. In the times of elections these tokens spring to life influencing a large section of unsuspecting voters. When in power, political parties cash in on this sentiment and erect statues of their leaders doling out money from the state exchequer. The statue then attains the status of a shrine. No one dare touch it or shift it elsewhere for hurting popular sentiment. A desecration is often a blessing in disguise since it brings more popular support and sympathy in its wake.
If Modi, the prime minister in waiting, is to be believed, Rs 20 billion will be nationalized on the statue which at 182 meters will not only be the tallest in the world, it will also stand almost twice high as the Statue of Liberty in New York. For the sake of record, the statue to be completed in 42 months will be 30 meters taller than China's Spring Temple Buddha -- currently the tallest at 153 meters -- and will be set on a river island close to the Narmada. An amusement park and a garden will lend a picturesque locale to the place and expected to be a major tourist attraction.
Behind this apparently laudatory move is a deft political manoeuvre to co-opt one of the leading lights of the Indian freedom struggle. This grandeur of thought stands on the rationale that the "World will be forced to look at India when the statue stands tall." The country should be gratified to know that it hasn't occurred to Modi's high-thinking ideology that a statue few hundred meters higher could have been visible in all parts of the world!
In the early eighties, this blog writer was flabbergasted to watch then actor-turned chief minister of Andhra Pradesh NT Rama Rao commissioning 33 repeat 33 well-sculptured bronze statues of people from the region's political and religious history who he believed played an iconic role in the development of Telugu culture. The statues lined on the scenic Tank Bund Road in the capital of Hyderabad do look majestic but it is kind of sobering to know the kind of money NTR government squandered to showcase 'Telugu pride'. In one of his visits to the US, NTR had seen the Statue of Liberty and his starry thinking immediately took fancy to the idea of doing something similar, albeit with his own touch (!) in his home state.
NTR's penchant for such political souvenirs did not rest at that. After a long search he found a solid granite rock on a mountainside 40 kms outside Hyderabad and thereafter, for over a year, hundreds of labourers slogged day in and day out to erect a statue of Buddha that stood 18 meters tall. It was (and still is) world's tallest monolithic statue of Buddha installed on a special platform (interestingly called Rock of Gibralter!) in the middle of the Lake Husain Sagar.
This was all to the good and before the people had stopped marveling at this bombastic idea, the statue tipped and sunk into the lake while it was being carried on a trailer vehicle to be erected on the platform. The accident killed more than ten people. The tragedy was bizarre not only for the way it happened but also for the fact that the architect of the opulent idea, NTR had already been ousted from power by then. For two years, newspapers across the country carried unfailingly reports about the salvage operation that lasted two years and drilled a big hole in the government coffers.
In politically dicey Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati carried this political gaming to the extreme. In her quixotic tenure as the chief minister she erected so many statues of herself and her mentor Kanshi Ram that people finally stopped counting them. Among other things, it led to a huge public outcry and a complaint to the Supreme Court. The self-styled Mayawati couldn't care less that the government treasury was being bled white in one of the least developed but most populous states of the country. These statues are now white elephants, ironically the BSP's political symbol.
Official figures say Mayawati spent over Rs 15 billion on the exercise, which mercifully was cut short or else UP would have seen 10,000 more such statues mushrooming across the state. The best was probably reserved for Noida where reports say 20,000 trees were felled to erect giant statues of Mayawati and Kanshi Ram. The only ones to be happy with the idea were probably the pigeons around the park. Back home in Maharashtra, the embers of the debate on Bal Thackeray's statue in Shivaji Park, Mumbai refuse to die down.
I am sure every time a statue is erected the police probably shit bricks shuddering at the thought of the law and order problem a desecration might create. Do the politicians care about the strident criticism of their politics of statues? The answer is "no".
A statue is not known to have been erected in honour of a critic.
sir, don't they listen to their inner calling that they are spending public's money unnecessarily?
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