Mike Nizza in The Lede on the Maharashtra government’s grand plan to build a huge statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji (1674-1680) at an estimated cost of $4.5 million. When complete, it will be taller than the Statue of Liberty.
When a proposal emerged to build an immense statue on an island off the coast of one of India’s largest cities, there was no point in denying a nod to New York: “It is true that the Statue of Liberty was perhaps an inspiration a little bit,” one official told Reuters.
While the technical specifications differ just a little — the new statue is to be clad in bronze, not copper, and to rise about 4 feet higher — there are big differences in theme and posture.
Lady Liberty welcomes the tired, poor and huddled masses, but the new statue off Mumbai will feature Chhatrapati Shivaji, a 17th-century warrior king who has lately been embraced by nativist parties who oppose immigration. And where Liberty stands on her own feet, Shivaji will be depicted riding a horse, the International Business Times reports.
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Yet Mayawati got success in erecting her own Idol alongside Dr Ambedkar’s statue at Lucknow!
They are just Misusing the heroes of past for their fraud political purpose. Even now Farmers are committing suicide in Vidharbha. The roads and severe lines and water supply is uneven in various parts of Mumbai, yet this project has been staged, may be just another ploy of congress to try to pacify MMS stream of divide and rule between Marathis, Tamils, UPites, Biharis at Mumbai!
Sufferers will obviously be the citizens.
They even haven’t calculated that no matters how much tourism the statue may increase, it will take 100s of years for it to recover the invest money and start getting some profits with interest, plus maintenance and security will keep on raising the amount of invested money!
It is a lost case, and the real citizens which produced this money by hard work even have no say of yes or no to allow the arbitrary monopolistic socio-democratic government (constantly disturbing economy of India) to raise that statue.
Anyhow, the interference of government in economic sector of India should be culled down. Either Miniarchy or simple laissez-faire free market system/anarcho-capitalism is the need!
I wrote about it here Indian version of Statue of Liberty!