Posted by Namita Bhandare: My new column in Mint argues for a moratorium on statue-building. Build schools, hospitals, heck, even public parks instead. What do you think?
How wonderful it is to harbour ambitions to build edifices taller, bigger, better than the Statue of Liberty. But has the irony of the fact that Lady Liberty represents welcoming freedom to struggling immigrants escaped our elected representatives in Maharashtra?
The Maharashtra government’s grand plans to construct a 309ft-high statue of the state’s most iconic figure, Chhatrapati Shivaji, in the Arabian Sea will cost taxpayers Rs100 crore, probably more. For that price we will have a statue in the sea that is taller than even the Statue of Liberty. Imagine that!
It’s a colossal plan in hubris. Statues are symbols that represent a value system. When you construct a mammoth statue of a man who is without doubt the state’s most iconic figure, regardless of cost, regardless of ongoing farmer suicides, regardless of malnutrition deaths and regardless of pathetic infrastructure, you are sending out a message: This is a government that stands for cosmetic change; if it cannot rival the infrastructure and liberalism of New York, it can at least have a statue that is taller than its most enduring symbol.
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