Who’s afraid of the Statue of Unity?

It is not difficult to know why the prestigious Unity Statue built by Gujarat Government as a befitting memorial for Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is reviled by political foes of the BJP. The man who made the Union of India possible merging 565 princely states together into a single political entity, and also was the first Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of India has few friends in the ecosystem created by the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru was not happy even after usurping the Prime Ministership of the country. He continued to be wary of Sardar’s mass appeal and political clout, probably because he had ideas of a dynastic succession to him, and feared Sardar’s opposition.

The world’s tallest statue standing a 182-metre tall on a bend of the river Narmada in Gujarat was inaugurated on October 31 by the Prime Minister of India is therefore attacked by politicians of all hues opposed to the Narendra Modi government, and their acolytes in the media and even academia. Some call it an “irony cast in stone” perhaps alluding to the Sardar ordering a ban on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Congress party suddenly claims Patel was a Congress leader. Both these realities were not rebutted by the BJP or Prime Minister Modi, it may be noted. But Congress party forgot that Patel had to withdraw the ban on RSS following the Justice Kapur report absolving RSS of any role in the assassination of Gandhiji. This had also resulted in Patel being ironically described as a pro-RSS man by the butter-boys of the Nehrus (who had by then assumed the surname Gandhi) and the Muslim fundamentalists!

The third type of opposition to the Sardar Patel statue is for squandering on his image “an estimated at Rs 5,000 crore” which “could have been invested more profitably!” These people forget that the Congress installed statues of the Nehru-Gandhi’s all over the country as a vulgar and cheap way to remember the Nehru clan governments! What is the cost of the prime real estate in New Delhi where imposing mousoleums for their dead leaders have been built and maintained over past six decades? If the statue of Congress leader Vallabh Bhai Patel who banned the RSS is installed by the BJP government, it wasn’t obviously to claim he was their man; it was an apolitical tribute to the man who was a great Indian patriot.

It may be remembered that Statue of Unity project was first announced on 7 October 2010. A Statue of Unity Movement started to drive support for the construction of the statue, organising a Suraaj ("good governance") petition signed by around 20 million people which is considered as the world's largest petition! A marathon ‘Run for Unity’ was held on 15 December 2013 in places throughout India, and the statue’s Foundation stone was laid by Sri. Narendra Modi, then the Chief Minister of Gujarat on 31 October 2013, the 138th Birth Anniversary of Sardar Patel. It was not a political gimmick for the people of Gujarat to remember the great son of Gujarat. The statue was built on a Public Private Partnership model. Most of the money was raised by the Government of Gujarat. The Government of India had allotted 3 billion for the project in the budget from 2012 to 2016.

The world’s highest, the Statue of Unity is not only a tribute to the Iron Man of India, but also is the first such tourist attraction located in India and is termed ‘Pride of Nation’. A sense of patriotism and unity of India will be infused in the hearts and minds of the people who visit the Statue of Unity, estimated to remain as it is for a thousand years. According to media reports 2.79 lakh visitors went to see the statue in a month and its ticket sale generated Rs 6.38 crore in revenue. It implies that it will continue contributing to the national income of India through tourism for the next ten centuries.

Now let us examine a peculiar hostile reaction from overseas. Tory MP Peter Bone had recently made a bone-headed comment about the Statue of Unity. He said the project was “total nonsense”. “To take 1.1billion pounds in aid from us and then at the same time spend 330 million pounds on a statue is a total nonsense and it is the sort of thing that drives people mad!" he said.  The man’s unhinged crudity should not be ignored.

According to the admission of UK’s Department for International Development it had ended ‘traditional aid’ to India in 2015, though Britain continues to fund projects in India – it was £92.6million in 2017. These projects are their choice – for example, £14,000 (Rs 13.27 lakh) used to increase ‘religious tolerance among young people’ was obviously sought or suggested by the “Hindu Nationalist” government headed by Mr.Narendra Modi! Former President Pranab Mukherjee when he was the Finance Minister of India had stated in the Rajya Sabha that India did not want British any aid. "We do not require the aid. It is a peanut in our total development exercises (expenditure)." That was way back in 2012; today, India is the world’s fastest-growing economy, has sent a mission to Mars, boasts more billionaires than the UK and itself a net aid-giver.

I can’t figure out why the British are sulking over the Statue of Unity and what irks the British MP in particular. Are the progeny of people who came here and conquered us to make us civilised Christians envious of the former colony’s symbols of power? They couldn’t contain the anger and dismay when on November 14, 2008, the Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-1’s Moon Impact Probe analysed the subsurface debris and reported the presence of water ice! They were envious of our nuclear submarine as well!

If the boorish British MP looked back at the history of his country, he would realise his country wasn’t any “Great Britain” when India was doing much better economically. Their “greatness” came about from plundering the world. What ails Britain when they see their former colonies regaining in power and stature is that Britain understands its weak position in the comity of nations and psychologically unable to handle the situation thanks to the meaningless “Super Power” status and an unreasonable veto power in the UN! When they had the 159-feet tower clock Big Ben was built their capital was full of hideous slums and one part of the city with a tidal ditch running through it as the only source of drinking water! The world of poverty and poor houses novelist Dickens drew up in his several novels are unforgettable. The wealth came from employing slave labour and sucking colonies dry!

Economist Professor Utsa Patnaik (who taught at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, from 1973 until her retirement in 2010) has recently written a detailed analysis shows how India was reduced to penury by 190 years of the malign British Raj! According to her, the total drain from 1765 to 1938, compounded up to 2016, comes to £9.2 trillion; since $4.86 exchanged for £1 those days, this sum equals about $45 trillion- an amount to be larger than the cumulative 200-year GDP of Britain! Britain colonized India, a country geographically 20 times larger, and 20 times the population, was dominated by Britain with just about 40000 British officers and men. It was not without some truth that Gandhiji, in a moment of anger-induced humour said that if Indians spat in unison, we could drown the British occupying forces!

In this context, with respect to Mr.Peter Bone, I must say Aneurin Bevan was right about describing at least some of the Conservatives as “lower than vermin”. The last comment I wish to make on the subject is quoting what Anthony King in his book “Who Governs Britain?” writes about British Government: “since they cannot punch above their weight,..talk above it instead!” Let us shout to the goras “we don't, we don't, we don't care!”