File photo of Mayawati's statue in Uttar Pradesh
When Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi visited Mumbai this week, he articulated his idea of honouring the Iron Man of India, Sardar Vallabhai Patel. Mr Modi told a gathering at the Indian Merchant's Chamber, "I want a huge statue of Sardar Patel to be built and I will name it the Statue of Unity. I expect this statue to be double the size of the Statue of Liberty. This will be the world's biggest statue, 182 metres. I want the world to come down to his feet."
Currently the tallest statue in the world is China's Spring Temple Buddha at 128m. Patel's statue, once completed, would reign higher than that. It will be located at Sadhu Bet, an island situated 3 kilometers away from the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat.
Modi's dream project aims higher than the Statue of Liberty in New York and taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris. However, author and columnist Anil Dharkar points out the key difference between them and the proposed statue of Patel. He says, "If you look at the great monuments in the world, the Eiffel or the Statue of Liberty, these are not about individuals. They are about concepts. So maybe if we have a statue at all, it should be on the concept of India. Let's not waste public money on honouring people who have already been honoured, often with a lot of statues."
But it's not just Mr Modi who fancies erecting statues. The Maharashtra government plans a 312 feet statue of warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji in the Arabian Sea, just off the iconic Marine Drive. The project is expected to cost Rs 350 crore. The project has been announced even before environmental clearances have come. Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan says, "Permissions from the Ministry of Environment needs to be taken. We are doing that now. We have seen a place, it is good."
The politics of statues is most apparent in Uttar Pradesh where BSP chief Mayawati spent crores and repeatedly honoured herself and her ideological mentor, Kanshi Ram.
Interestingly, the politics over statues is foregrounded when elections are around the corner. Modi's Sardar memorial was announced before the state elections. Maharashtra's Shivaji memorial, now fast-track, was also announced a year before elections. Ironically, even Bal Thackeray, whose party, the Shiv Sena is named after Shivaji, had called the memorial a stupid electoral gimmick.
The question that needs to be asked is whether tax payers should be paying for the pet projects of their elected representatives.