A Country of Statues
This has been bothering me for a while now. But clarity was
eluding me. I didn’t know whether I was concerned about something significant
or whether I was deliberating on a completely insignificant, even
inconsequential matter that did not deserve the kind of attention I was being
forced to give it.
You see I was very young when I realized that the Indian psyche
had perforce given shape, or you can say ‘deified’ all that the population at
large respected or feared. So we had God statues everywhere. And immediately
after Independence we had a burst of Leader Statues.
Every town had a Gandhi Statue. Every other one had a local
freedom fighter’s statue installed at its very center. How many of us laughed
when each leader was caricatured in 3 Dimensions by projecting his
characteristic stance even after his/her death? A bent over Gandhi with a
walking stick. A proud NTR pointing a hand towards the future. The list was
exhaustive and exhausting.
In Hyderabad alone, the display of several statues on the
city’s most prominent promenade (Tank Bund), half of whom did not even merit a
mention called for a quick recap of Andhra History that led to the discovery
that a Chief Secretary had slipped in his father’s name into the list just so
he could save on the cost of building a statue.
But while the pigeons celebrated their many new perches and
shat in celebration, we Indians dreamed only of the Statue of Liberty and the
Green Card she used to hand out. Some of us of course discovered Bangkok and
came back at peace with ourselves claiming with a glib expression that it was
the plethora of Buddha Statues in Bangkok that were the reason for the relaxed
look and nothing else. And a Sandwich Massage was just an elevating experience
between two Gautam Buddhas, one in Gold and the other in Jade.
This whole Statue thing came to the fore in my mind a couple
of years back when I heard about Chinna Jeeyar Swamy and his mission to build a
Statue of Equality. And when I learnt about Ramanuja, I was truly inspired.
Truly, a Saint who stood for Equality a thousand years ago deserved a statue
and I doffed my hat to the Jeeyar who had taken this task upon himself.
But while the Swamy was appealing only to his devotees and
followers to contribute towards the cause, one man with a beard and a massive
56 inch chest went ahead and dipped deep into the national treasure and came up
with a Statue of Unity.
Now my reaction to this was tempered by a pragmatism that I
am ashamed of, simply because it is borderline cynical. My question, and I have
been asking this of myself for a while now, is whether Sardar Patel carries his
Saint of Unity status with ease or with discomfort? Unity was not a passion,
nor a belief for Patel Saheb I feel. I think it was only a job assigned to him
by Gandhi, Nehru, Circumstances whatever. Whoever.
He did the job I guess, but that’s about it. He did not achieve
anything miraculous. He only forced the inevitable. Our very own Nizam is a
case in example. Do you think he had any choice? Was the option of becoming a
Muslim State in the middle of the country ever a viable option? No…while Punjab
and Bengal were geometrically divided into religion based slices of the pie,
Hyderabad had really no option but to be sucked into the spicy Indian Curry
that was being cooked up by the other states.
And the debate began. 3000+ crores for a statue? While the
country burns with hunger. I have no problem with Patel the Iron Man, and thank
him for all that he did in his time. But my problem has always been with the
glorification of the people of a certain time, place etc., and propping them up
as heroes.
I sincerely believe that while there were genuine heroes in
the so called ‘Freedom Struggle’ many were just products of circumstances. It’s
like I’ll never really understand whether we won Freedom or were just given it
by a defeated, devastated Great Britain who realized it had better things to do
instead of ruling the Raj.
And in the same spirit, was Gandhi the leader who delivered
freedom to us or was he just the lucky runner in the last lap of a relay race
who carried the baton handed over to him by the true runners who established
the unbeatable lead in the first place.
While this debate raged in my mind and I was finding it hard
to come to terms with this whole Statue Explosion (the latest is that Karnataka
is building a statue for Mother Kauvery) I realized to my horror that the day
was not far away when we would be referred to as the Country of Statues.
But wait! Isn’t that what we always have been? A country
full of people who have just frozen in the face of adversity like a statue. Immobile,
nonreactive and passive to the core, haven’t we cloaked our inability to react
in a shroud of tolerance?
Else how did we take the British invasion of a million by a
few thousands lying down? How are we coming to terms with freeze frame politics
that silence the masses and amplify the vanity of a bunch of buffoons who know
nothing but self improvement.
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