Monumental efforts to win elections

Success is often a matter of timing. The Maharashtra government has just announced plans to install a massive Shivaji statue off Marine Drive. Is the timing right? The chief minister certainly thinks so. I

don’t know about you, but I find it pretty galling that he makes the assumption that we are all idiots. Wouldn’t we be if we didn’t see through the cynical timing with an election just around the corner?

The timing is off for another far more important reason. The statue is going to cost a lot of money (Rs350 crore) and these aren’t exactly prosperous times. People in Maharashtra have been hit badly with food production down, drought affecting vast parts of the land, water shortages and power cuts. Things are so bad in fact that farmers’ suicide in Vidarbha have now dropped off the front pages.

This is the time you want to spend Rs350 crores on a grandiose statue?  This is not to say that we shouldn’t have a Shivaji statue in the future. The Chhatrapati is revered in Maharashtra for the valour he showed during a difficult time in our history.

You could argue that enough tribute has been paid to him in the form of many statues like  at Gateway of India and Juhu beach. VT has been renamed in his honour and so has Mumbai’s airport. Is there need for another statue?

If you look at all the large monuments which have become recognisable landmarks the world over, you will see that they express abstract ideas. Like the Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids, Big Ben…. Only the colossal Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil is a representation of a person, but that is a religious figure, not a human being. 

These questions apart, what makes me truly nervous about this project will make everyone concerned too. In fact, very concerned. That’s the aesthetics of the monument. A well executed equestrian statue will look dramatic against the backdrop of the sea and Shivaji holding a sword aloft could become a symbol of India’s determination to keep modern-day intruders out. But suppose, just suppose, the monument is botched up? It will not only show disrespect to Shivaji but also remain a gigantic and expensive eyesore for the rest of its life.

The reason for my apprehension is our dismal record in erecting statues. A few years ago it was decided to honour the well-known writer Acharya Atre at Worli Naka. Wonderful I thought, a creative person given pride of place instead of some politician. But what they did was to install a bust! Now a bust would look right in a library, but at a six-road junction!

Luckily they have rectified that mistake and installed a full sized statue which is the right size, strikes an appropriate pose and is perfectly proportioned. But as if to cancel these positives, they have put it on a plinth that is so elaborate and distracting that it draws attention away from the statue, thus defeating its very raison d’etre.

There are many other disasters in the city. A Mukesh statue at Napean Sea Road which doesn’t capture the spirit of the singer, Bal Thackeray’s father’s statue opposite Portuguese Church which is so tiny that it belongs indoors and Flora Fountain of course.

The original British fountain with a figure of a woman is brilliantly placed and to perfect scale. When patriotic fervour had to be appeased, they not only renamed the square but put up a Soviet style statue that is far too large, its plinth much too obtrusive with the whole intruding into a space not designed for it. See what I mean?

But perhaps my fears are unfounded. Perhaps the ecological problems caused by a new man-made island could be so severe that the central environment ministry will hold back  approval. We will then once again see the Maharashtra government’s announcement for what it really is: yet another meaningless election promise which no one intends to keep.

The writer is a commentator on social affairs.