Sardar Patel's Statue of Unity

The Statue of Unity has come at a time when the euphoria of expectations of the people from the government has ebbed. The idea of development that once united all in 2014 has disillusioned the youth, the poor, the farmer, the unemployed, the women and the people in general. Deep political, social, religious and cast divisions run across the country over the last four and a half years. The country has witnessed and still experiencing the threat to unity. Believe it or not that deep under the psyche it is not difficult to read the mind of the government to raise the stature of Patel in comparison to Nehru - though Patel once banned RSS over Mahatma Gandhi's assassination. It is very strange that secular Democrat like Patel is hailed as only maker of united India by the believers of hinduttva politics.

It is better to debate pointwise than getting personal. Anyone can have one's way of thinking. Asking questions to the government in power shouldn't be the cause for anybody to lose one's cool to the extent of attacking the presenter of opinion than debating over the content of the presentation. Well I never do that. For me content is more important to debate. Pointwise counter argument should always be acceptable but not the deviation upto the extent of challenging one's intellectuality. In my more than 25 years of globe trotting I saw Statue of Liberty gifted to US by France has not yet been out did by any government in power in US. There were many renowned legendary Presidents of US, who were the votary of freedom movement, freedom itself, democracy and stalwarts of US unification. Maturity lies in approach to nation building, fighting against poverty, providing respectable living and both ends meet to farmers, creating opportunities for burgeoning unemployed youth, security for women and social security through law and order for all than psychic display of personal aggrandisement to divert the nation from real issues by political propaganda with coming election in mind. Now the best way to counter is not to go back to the last 70 years. Who is running the government? Pappu or Gappu? We have been asking questions to Indira, Rajiv or Manmohan Singh or any other Congress PM of the then ruling government. Today Modi is the PM. Obviously we question him holding the NDA election manifesto in our hands. The plight of nation is a matter of concern. The nation is being systematically pushed into the maize of communal controversies, caste divisions and fanaticism. Mulayam Singh and Mayawati splurged crores of public money to build their political monuments. Now the NDA is on the same way. The African continent produced so many legendary leaders like Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Samora Machel of Mozambique, Ms Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania etc etc. These countries focussed more on preserving the heritage sites associated with these leaders than used their towering stature for political propaganda. For example the prisons like Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison, and Victor Verster Prison of Nelson Mandela preserved as their national monuments. The monument of Nkrumah stands in the middle of capital city Accra of Ghana. Haile Selassie is remembered with Haile Selassie Square with almost half a kilometer very busy wide road and his tomb on one side in the capital city Addis Ababa of Ethiopia. All these countries gave more importance to nation building by drawing inspiration from these great leaders than vying with their political opponent to be liberal with  colossal waste of public money -- and making crude attempt to invoke the past by constructing gargantuan effigy.

On the other hand monuments to the Soviet legacy have been under attack. Crowds cheered as Ukrainian nationalists tore down a statue of Lenin. In Warsaw, Poland all remnants of Soviet times are demolished. A few sculptures survive as theme parks such as Gruto Parkas in Lithuania or Szoborpark in Budapest. Creating statues in India now seems a sweetest political revenge just as smashing statues have been in Europe. Apart from Lenin, Stalin and Karl Marx even ancient Egyptian statues got vandalised, while Roman emperors often had their marble faces broken by Christians. Gone are the days of colossal statues of politicians such as rulers of yester years no longer work today to put up to awe the people.

We have statues of Mahatma Gandhi, Lala Lajpat Rai, Lokmanya Tilak, Babu Rajendra Prasad, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose all over India. We have many such statues of Vallabhbhai Patel too as that of Mahatma Gandhi and Netaji -- even at prominent places of Delhi.

One thing is for sure that RSS-NDA Hindu supremacist organisation trying to include Sardar Patel among Hindu nationalist projecting him as opposed to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. But Patel was staunchly against a Hindu nation and had famously said in February 1949: 'Hindu rule is a mad idea. It will kill the soul of India’.

Next on the card is off the coast of Mumbai the taller and divisive sculpture of Chhatrapati Shivaji, a Hindu warrior king, revered for battling Muslim rulers. It is scheduled for completion in 2021.

A country struggling to create jobs and farmers committing suicide amid a sluggish economy could have surely avoided this wasteful expenditure. India needs gigantic growth, not gigantic statues.