Statue Culture

For the last few days there are news in the media regarding damaging of statues, which have been erected in the memory of some leading personalities. Why  this is happening, no one is able to answer in a right way. Even I tried to analyse this problem, and what ever I could deduce will like to share with you. We, Indians, believe in “Moorti Pooja”, that is worshiping the statues of various gods as per Hindu culture. So by Indian standards and traditions, if some person has work for the betterment of society and humanity, we honour that person by erecting his/her statue in a public place. The place where statue is erected becomes a sacred place and for on the celebrity’s birthday or  even death anniversary people gather at that place and garland the statue or offer flowers and speak few word about him/her and his/her work.

Now a days erecting statues for honouring some one has become has  become a political game and it has become a question of one up man ship between the cadre of different political parties. In most of city of our country you will find the statues of so many departed people and in some case even people who are alive, one starts feeling there are so many great people in our city and country as a whole. Statues of great historical leaders are all right but statues of political leaders are not at all justifiable.

Recently following incidents happened:

1. After Left party lost the Tripura election after 25 years of communist rule in the state. Some people brought the statue of Lenin down and started telling that Lenin is irrelevant to Indian politics and culture, why his statue should be there in India.
2. Because workers of Left Parties(Communists) though damaging the statue of Lenin must be the work of Right Wing group(Sangh Privar), and statue of Shyama Prasad Mookerjee was sprayed with Black ink in Kolkata
3. BR Ambedkar’s statue was damaged in Merrut Dist in UP.

I do not understand why this love for statues by Indian politicians. All over country you will find statues of Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Ambedkar and list will be end less.It is believed to be OK, if some one has died and the statue of same person is installed, but in our country even living politicians also get their statues installed. Classical example is Mayawati, when she was ruling UP, she got numerous statues of herself installed in Lucknow and other cities in UP. In south there are many statues of Film Stars and in some cases their statues are  installed in temple and they are worshiped like  god.

According to my opinion, the successive govts at centre and states have failed to curb the menace of statue culture. it should be made law that if some political party wants to install statue of their particular, they can install in their party office but they should not be allowed to install the same at any public places. In each major city of our country, all the political parties have their office, they should use that area to install the statue. I do not understand why the political leaders should be given the status of god. The Dalit Community of our country consider BR Ambedkar as their biggest leader and he has been accorded a demi god status, and his statues will be the most in number wise in the  country, and same is the case with  Gandhi. I do not understand why the love for statues, and further the misuse of public property to install them.  Now Maharashtra govt is spending almost Rs 3000 Cr  to install  Shivaji’s statue  off Mumbai Coast in a island, and similarly Gujarat govt is spending Rs 2000 Cr  for Sardar Patel’s statue in Gujarat. And what is govt stand, these will be made as tourist spots and will earn revenue for the govt, what a lame excuse.

According to my opinion Govt should enact law to  ban the installation of statues, there are many different ways to remember these leaders rather just installing their statues. We do not want to give these personalities Demi God status.

Awaiting your views/comments/feed backs.

PS- I am getting some feed backs and comments in foreign language , as the link for this blog is given on face book also. My request to all such friends is that , please do comment but only in the language which I can understand and ie English Language.