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Mileage from memories?
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Are statues a way of remembering what our leaders and eminent personalities stood for? A closer look at the issue.
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THE SUDDEN disappearance of the Kannagi statue from its site on the Marina beach has raised a debate over the erection of statues in various public places. It is only over the last 50 years that there has been a phenomenal increase in the number of statues being installed in different parts of the State. In the past, statues were mostly sculpted for religious purposes and, therefore, were seen only in temples. Only later did politics come to play a part in their installation and then statues began to be erected with much fanfare at parks, street corners and other public places.
Thus unveiling a statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose on the Marina, the then Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi, reportedly claimed that though his party did not discriminate between leaders of different hues and regularly paid homage by all garlanding all the statues, this was not the case with other parties who neglected the statues of great Dravidian leaders such as Periyar and Anna.
One is reminded here of Mahatma Gandhi who objected to a Rs. 10-lakh proposal to erect his statue in Bombay as he felt that the money could be expended to provide a utility that would benefit the people of the congested city.
This is in contrast to today's so-called rationalist politicians who seek to gain political mileage and publicity by the erection of statues, arches, memorials and monuments at the cost of the public exchequer.
Indeed, so much time is devoted by the media in publicising the installation and garlanding of statues by our politicians that it would seem to be their major pre-occupation.
But with Chennai rapidly becoming a concrete maze, with its citizenry squeezing themselves into poky apartments, it seems irrational that more statues should eat up space that is becoming increasingly scarce. Let there be a ban on this practice, lest the city resemble a vast mausoleum.
V.E. VENKATRAMANI
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