There are some avatars in politics that cannot be touched and neither can they be allowed to break and fall. Every state has its own heroes or iconic personalities whose identity transcends borders. There is no greater hero in Maharashtra than Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
I got my lesson about Shivaji Maharaj in the 1990s when I wrote a column on the controversy surrounding the renaming of Mumbai airport. I had insisted that JRD Tata be given the honour for his pioneering role in Indian civil aviation. Immediately, the Shiv Sena ran an angry editorial, insisting that the airport be named after the Maratha warrior-king (Shivaji) and no one else. Our office also received some threatening phone calls, demanding that the article be withdrawn.
There was also an attempt to blame
The lesson I learned so many years ago is haunting and embarrassing the Maharashtra government today. The collapse of Shivaji Maharaj’s new statue in Sindhudurg has triggered emotional outrage and a war of words. The Maharashtra government initially tried to blame the Indian Navy, which had built the statue, but soon backed down and promised to build an even bigger statue at the same location. The opposition took out a protest march accusing the government of corruption in the construction of the statue. With assembly elections due in Maharashtra in a few months, it is natural for politics to take place on this issue.
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Even the Prime Minister, who is not known to apologize publicly, had no choice but to express regret. It was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who inaugurated the statue with much fanfare last December. How a statue that was originally supposed to be only six feet tall suddenly became 35 feet tall without using proper materials is a matter of investigation. If there has been corruption at the local level, only a proper investigation can reveal it.
Idols are more important than power
Look beyond the noisy allegations and counter-allegations and think about what the fallen statue of a great man tells us about our politics and its priorities. There are hundreds of big and small statues of Shivaji in Maharashtra and across the country. If Dr. BR Ambedkar’s statue is installed in almost every city and village across the country, Shivaji Maharaj also occupies a prominent place in most of the cities of Maharashtra.
A statue or memorial is often the easiest option for any ruling party to appropriate the legacy of a revered figure. When Mayawati came to power in Uttar Pradesh, building Ambedkar statues and memorials was one of the main concerns of her government. Mayawati wanted to associate herself with Babasaheb’s followers, without embracing his unshakable constitutional values.
Another statue is to be built in the Arabian Sea
Even in Maharashtra, leaders who talk of building big statues of Shivaji Maharaj at taxpayers’ expense are not as willing to invest in building better schools and hospitals. For example, in 2004, the then Congress-Nationalist Congress Party coalition government in Mumbai proposed to build a memorial to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in the Arabian Sea near Mumbai. Since then, every government in Maharashtra has promised to build the statue and compared it to the Statue of Liberty in New York.
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Twenty years later, the statue, mired in court and environmental battles, is still not built, while costs continue to escalate. In 2018, the estimated cost of the statue was over Rs 3,600 crore. In a city where there is already a statue of Shivaji Maharaj at the Gateway of India, is it really necessary to build another statue far away from the shoreline? But which leader or government in Maharashtra would have the political courage to suggest that Shivaji’s statue is a waste of taxpayers’ money?
Debt, drought, distress
Recently when the Economic Survey of Maharashtra 2023-24 came out, the current debt of the state has crossed Rs 7 lakh crore, while the interest payment is more than Rs 48,000 crore. While the state remains an industrial power and the largest contributor to the gross domestic product (GDP), the agriculture sector has however slowed down. Last year, a poor monsoon led to a sharp decline in crop production and the situation of rural distress became worrisome.
Last year, the Maharashtra government declared “drought-like conditions” in more than a thousand villages in several districts. A December 2022 audit report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) found delays and cost overruns in several major irrigation projects. In the first six months of 2024, more than 500 farmer suicides were reported. The question is, which government will prioritise finding a solution to the long-standing agrarian crisis?
It is easier to grab headlines by promising to build a giant statue of Shivaji Maharaj in the Arabian Sea than to focus on the nuances of governance by solving the concerns of the state’s vast farmer population. Wouldn’t the legacy of a great ruler like Shivaji Maharaj be better served if the state increased the per capita income of its farmer population rather than trying to build yet another memorial in his name?
Unfortunately, when politics is driven by emotion, not logic, it is impossible to have a rational debate about misplaced priorities, especially when the political environment is more polarized than ever.
Also read: Who is guilty? PWD and Navy face to face in the case of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s statue falling
What kind of politics is this in Maharashtra
In the last five years, Maharashtra has seen three chief ministers, two regional parties have split, MLAs have been offered several inducements to switch sides and there has been a lot of horse-trading. Today, those politicians who are grieving over the fall of Shivaji Maharaj’s statue have a simple question for them: Do you also grieve over the falling standards of political purity and public conduct? And if you don’t, then you have absolutely no moral right to claim to be the true successor of Shivaji Maharaj.
Just as the Prime Minister has promptly apologised for the fallen statue of Shivaji Maharaj, will he or any other senior leader express grief over the farmer suicides that have taken place in Maharashtra in the last few years?
Source (PTI) (NDTV) (HINDUSTANTIMES)