The collapse of Shivaji statue is an insult to history
Statues represent the sacred petrifaction of history. They withstand the wayward winds of Nature and politics, as metaphors of diversity in unity. They are today’s tributes to yesterday’s glories when men and women lived and died defending or embodying values that shape our society. Constructed with the best of materials and techniques available, statues such as the 460 BC Artemision Bronze, installed in the National Archaeology Museum in Athens, millennia after their sculptors have become dust, are messages from one civilisation to the next.
Does Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde’s weak excuse that ‘gutsy winds’ toppled Chhatrapati Shivaji’s statue indicate an ominous soliloquy, with state elections around the corner? Is the statue of Balasaheb Thackeray, which mocks the same ocean winds that felled the Maratha icon’s sculpture, telling the man who usurped his son’s legacy something? Careers of turncoats crash. Ancient memorials to champions stand for centuries, defying the gravity of ideologies.
The dangerous side of the sycophancy of powerful BJP netas is currently getting Prime Minister Narendra Modi on board to inaugurate memorials made without a proper audit of the tender allotment, the contractor’s track record and political affiliation, and the designer’s credentials—a perfect recipe for scandal. Their only wish is to bask in the solar glow of Modi’s presence, like satellites encircling a luminous political object.
With friends like these, the Prime Minister doesn’t need enemies. Toadies are in a hurry to organise photo-ops beside hastily erected statues of historical and cultural figures whose reputation they hope to cash in on to get votes. Corruption is the shaky political foundation of opportunism. Of course, we can already see where the inquiry into the Shivaji statue fiasco is heading.
The fall guys will never be the politicians behind the commission, pun intended. No chance of the CM accepting moral responsibility for the debacle either, when opinion polls predict a political washout for his Shiv Sena which was baptised by pliant state institutions. Maybe someone should tell him that voters like it when powerful guys say “Sorry” instead of blaming the cock-up on the winds of change.
In spite of a pliant media not following up on the story, digital shows which have credibility are keeping the issue alive. There could be a cruel lesson in this for Shinde. The strategy of India’s political outfits to buy legislators and grab power (and contracts) is fated to backfire as the BJP’s defeat in many of the 2024 Lok Sabha seats showed. Such scandals rub off the lustre of Modi’s moxie.
Shivaji wasn’t the lone victim of the historical sacrilege. In 2020, six of the seven statues of the saptarishis installed at the Mahakal Corridor in Ujjain collapsed; also unable to resist strong winds. Modi was invited for the unveiling. It is a historical irony that the 17th century sandstone chhatri built by Vir Durgadas—who outfoxed the same Aurangazeb Shivaji had bested—embellished with statues of Ganapati, Shiva-Parvati, Hanuman, Durga and Krishna braved the elements with divine sangfroid. Statues of Periyar, Thiruvalluvar, Annie Besant, Sir Thomas Munro, Kamaraj, MG Ramachandran and Sivaji Ganesan have remained on their pedestals on Marina Beach unbothered by storm or cyclone.
The collapse of Shivaji’s statue goes beyond the Shinde Sena’s humiliation of one of the greatest personalities of India and Maharashtra. It indicates total disrespect for the country’s heritage and the figures that shaped it. Political treachery is such a common curse in Indian politics that a memorial to the Great Indian Defector would be par for the course. Betrayers of mandates face the same wrath Shivaji reserved for his enemies. A punishment voters are gladly executing everywhere irrespective of party, Exit Polls notwithstanding.
Ravi Shankar
ravi@newindianexpress.com