A WESTERN Indian province battling severe drought, thousands of farmer suicides, rising unemployment and soaring prices has opted to lavish 3.5 billion rupees (€50 million) on a statue of a revered local hero in the Arabian Sea that will be taller than the Statue of Liberty.
The government of Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, proposes to erect a 98m (321ft) bronze statue of Shivaji, a Hindu warrior king who successfully battled the country’s Mughal rulers in the 17th century, in a massive park to be built off the coast.
The grandiose scheme comes at a time when the administration is seeking a 110 billion rupee (€1.6 billion) relief package from the federal authorities to tackle drought and its severe fallout.
Scanty monsoon rains have triggered a sharp rise in suicides across Maharashtra, with 45 farmers killing themselves over the past three weeks over their inability to sustain their families.
Since 1995, more than 41,000 farmers committed suicide in the province whose capital Mumbai is home to 21 of India’s 51 dollar billionaires. Some 3,000 tribal children have also died in the state’s 27 districts due to malnutrition over the past month.
“All this is not going to pressurise the state exchequer at the cost of common man, at the cost of farmers and at the cost of drought. There will be a separate account for the statue” local legislator Jitendra Awhad declared defensively.
Shivaji was a necessary symbol of cultural nationalism, Mr Awhad said of the chieftain who used guerrilla warfare to fight Muslim rule in medieval India, eventually establishing a Hindu kingdom in western India in the mid-17th century. “He is not a dead hero. He is alive in the minds of people who love Maharashtra,” he added.
Mumbai residents, however, said aggressive publicity to erect Shivaji’s statue by the state’s ruling Nationalist Congress Party and Congress Party coalition was aimed at the upcoming provincial elections in October by attempting to appeal to local sentiment in the name of the medieval warrior.
“This is nothing more than a political stunt,” actor and social worker Gerson Da Cunha said.
At this moment the government is involved in a pre-election splurge, he stated, adding that Shivaji’s name would be better preserved if hospitals, schools or poverty-alleviation programmes were named after him.
An equally-cynical charade was being played out in equally drought-embattled northern Uttar Pradesh state where chief minister Mayawati’s obsession with statues, including those of herself, continues to drain the exchequer.
In the supplementary budget presented in the state legislature earlier this month, 5.50 billion rupee (€79 million) has been earmarked for some of her “dream projects” that include erecting statues and parks in the name of her mentors and herself.
Miss Mayawati (53), of the “untouchable” or low-caste Dalit community, has built 15 Parthenon-like parks in state capital Lucknow for over 25 billion rupees. These are dotted with marble statues and friezes of herself, of fellow Dalit leaders and the party symbol, the elephant.