Cashier ( Kotak Mahindra Bank ) | Posted on | News-Current-Topics
Why is Modi erecting Sardar Patel’s statue as world’s tallest statue?
News reporter (CEN News ) | Posted on
Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, a great name among India’s freedom fighters, and the deputy Prime Minister to Jawahar Lal Nehru, is going to enter an entirely new narrative of “the great men”, as his statue moves towards completion in Gujarat. The statue is going to be world’s tallest statue –comfortable taller than the current tallest statue of the world which is Spring Temple Buddha in China.
But Sardar Patel’s being a great freedom fighter is not the only reason behind this tribute to him. Neither is the motive of promoting tourism in India (specifically in Gujarat). They are the contributing factors, but there is much more to it. That the tallest statue of the world is being erected in Gujarat is one point to be noted, and the other point to be noted is that it is being constructed during the rule of Narendra Modi as India’s Prime Minister.
Sardar Patel, the great historic figure of Indian independence was not just a freedom fighter. He was a capitalist, unlike the socialist Nehru, and more than that, he was the “iron man of India”. Iron man, because he always wanted to unite the nation by incorporating 562 princely states into the Union of India after independence. And the statue is famously being promoted as “the statue of unity”.
So in this regard, the world’s tallest statue, the “statue of unity”, is the manifestation and “ironization” of Modi’s political ideologies. We all know how Modi visions the unity of India –very bluntly, with the thread of Hindu nationalism. Moreover, we all know that Gujarat, where Modi was the former CM is often called “the laboratory of Hindu nationalism”. Not only this, Gujaratis, and Gujarat having the reputation of essentially “entrepreneurial” fits well with the capitalistic ideologies of Sardar Patel and with Modi’s national projects such as ‘Make in India’, ‘Swatchh Bharat’, ‘Smart Cities’ and ‘Skill India’.
It’s not surprising that Gujarat is all ready to welcome the heavy in-flow of tourism and foreign investment, as the construction of wider roads in the vicinity of Sardar Sarovar Dam (where the statue is being constructed) has been started. Now the identification of India would be associated with the ideology of the Indian man whose statue is “world’s tallest statue”. Currently not as famous as Gandhi or Nehru internationally, Patel will get a new after life as people will start reading and knowing about him, and on this will feed the Hindutva politics of Narendra Modi.
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