{"id":3594,"date":"2016-06-21T01:39:54","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T20:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3594"},"modified":"2016-06-21T01:39:54","modified_gmt":"2016-06-20T20:09:54","slug":"why-we-need-statue-of-unity-sardar-vallabhai-patel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3594","title":{"rendered":"Why We Need the \u20b92,989-Crore Statue of Unity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A<\/span><\/p>s our Supreme Leader Narendra Bhai Damodardas Modi (GST included) unveiled a <\/span>massive statue<\/span><\/a> of India\u2019s first Deputy Prime Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the South Indian in me had only one question. \u201cHow is he Sardar if he is not wearing a turban?\u201d<\/span>\n\nWhile everyone around me was slamming Modiji for wastefulness of building the world\u2019s largest statue, I was secretly quite relieved. Relieved that <\/span>Modi<\/span><\/a> picked a deputy PM who was a Congressman over a deputy PM from his own party. If he\u2019d gone with the latter, we\u2019d have got a 600-ft statue of a sulking LK Advani and the costs would have automatically tripled to <\/span>\u20b9<\/span>9,000 crore \u2014 because to truly depict Advani, you\u2019d have to build his statue to stand in the shadow of 600-ft statues of <\/span>Atal Bihari Vajpayee<\/span><\/a> and Modi.<\/span>\n\nSince the unveiling of the statue, most debates have followed the same track: How can we spend <\/span>\u20b9<\/span>2,989 crore on a statue when the government could have spent the same amount of money to help thousands of people, or educate underprivileged kids, and build exactly seven Mangalyaans? This is the dumbest argument I\u2019ve heard from the smartest voices in our country. I acknowledge my <\/span>privilege<\/span><\/a> and the means at my disposal to probably never ever have to worry about food, clothing, and shelter in life, and I know there are a lot of people out there who have neither of those. But this time I call bullshit and refuse to use the poverty argument every time I disagree with the way this government functions. <\/span>\n\nFirst off, after <\/span>Old Monk<\/span><\/a> and Pan Parag (what, you\u2019ve not tried?), poverty and mathematics are the most lethal combination of <\/span>whataboutery<\/span><\/a> to ensure you talk shit all night. \u201cDo you ever wonder how many poor people Foodpanda could have fed instead of burning money to give you offers like \u2018Enter coupon code FUCKZOMATO and pay nine bucks for a \u20b9200 cookie?\u2019\u201d \u201cDo you know that instead of spending an hour writing an article about how some people use poor people to win arguments, you could have actually helped six aged people on the streets?\u201d<\/span>\n

Patel sacrificed designation for duty. He exchanged being the glamorous king of the jungle for the tireless workhorse.<\/blockquote>\nSo let\u2019s please not get carried away. I\u2019ll say it straight \u2013 I don\u2019t mind the government spending thousands of crores on statues, buildings, or memorials. Because let\u2019s not kid ourselves that this money would have found its way into helping the needy. All that would have happened, is that two years later, <\/span>Nirav Modi<\/span><\/a> would have been awarded a <\/span>\u20b9<\/span>3,000-crore contract for a defence company he\u2019d have floated two months prior, to build special planes for India\u2019s Space Force. <\/span>\n\nAnd really, you can\u2019t put a price tag on these statues. These are important structures and perhaps our only legacy \u2014 even if we have a history of defacing them. Monuments and statues are the only non-perishable items that will link back to us, defining our generation a few centuries later. They could serve as a starting point to anyone who wants to discover our history in the distant future. After all, what great, big, or beautiful structures have we built in our country in the last 50 years that will stand the test of time and serve as a bookmark in history? Orion Mall? Lodha World Towers? They will perish and new towers will be built over them, with newer redevelopment scams. <\/span>\n\nSo by all means, let\u2019s critique the statue. For its aesthetics. For its cultural and historical significance. But not for the money spent. Unfortunately, there will always be poverty and <\/span>bad roads<\/span><\/a> and terrible infrastructure. One can always argue that the money spent on every stunning structure from the past could have been put to better use. Was every stomach in <\/span>France<\/span><\/a> fed when they decided to overindulge in an arch for a four-and-a-half-month World Fair, today known as the Eiffel Tower? Couldn\u2019t France have invested the money in space exploration and ramping up its roads and rail lines instead of spending millions making a colossal neoclassical sculpture as a gift to the United States, today known as the Statue Of Liberty? Closer home, couldn\u2019t Shah Jahan contribute millions toward the study of postpartum haemorrhage instead of going overboard on a tomb for his wife who died giving birth to his 14th child due to postpartum haemorrhage? Or at least put money into a massive <\/span>sex-ed campaign<\/span><\/a>? <\/span>\n\nWe can discuss to death the historical and political significance of the statue, but even on that front, I still stand by the government\u2019s decision to make a monument for Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, one of our country\u2019s founding fathers. Learned, pragmatic, and a tough negotiator, he took on the arduous task of getting over 500 princely states to accede to the Republic of India. He was a loyal Gandhian and was thrice slated to become the president of the Congress party as a result of being nominated by a fair, intra-party democratic process. But on Gandhi\u2019s advice, he stepped aside for Nehru to lead the party, because Nehru would have it no other way. <\/span>\n\nPatel sacrificed designation for duty. He exchanged being the glamorous king of the jungle for the tireless workhorse. He gave up his personal goals for greater good. If you read Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins\u2019 non-fiction masterpiece <\/span>Freedom At Midnight<\/span><\/i>, you will understand that this man was the <\/span>Rahul Dravid<\/span><\/a> of the Indian freedom struggle. If anyone deserves a statue, it is Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.<\/span>\n\nHistory, at the end of it, is just a memory of a particular time. And from the lessons our hard disks have taught us, there is no unlimited space for memories. Over time, new memories take the place of older, less important ones. Unfortunately, nobody curates memories. Pele is the only footballer we remember from the \u201960s and Bradman the only cricketer we remember from the \u201930s. Four hundred years from now it is highly probable that Indians will only know of <\/span>Gandhi<\/span><\/a> from our freedom struggle. There will be newer heroes who would have paved the way for our country through more recent struggles. But through this statue, people in the future can always discover the important others in our struggle to become a democratic republic. <\/span>\n\nI\u2019m, of course, not foolish enough to believe that these are the reasons why NaMo (GST excluded) decided to erect this statue. Maybe Modi\u2019s first choice was to build a 600-ft statue of Nathuram Godse, but Amit Shah must have chipped in and said, \u201cIt\u2019s too out there and edgy, bhai.\u201d<\/span>\n\nWith this statue, I think Patel finally has his rightful place under the sun. And with it, Modiji (VAT included) has booked his place in history too. This way, everybody wins. <\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can\u2019t put a price tag on memorials like the Statue of Unity. They could serve as a starting point to anyone who wants to discover our history in the future. I just have one question here: What great structures have we built in the last 50 years that will stand the test of time? Orion Mall? Lodha World Towers?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":3595,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[19,729,6784,6785,6786],"class_list":["post-3594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pov","tag-india","tag-narendra-modi","tag-sardar-vallabhai-patel","tag-statue","tag-statue-of-unity"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy We Need the \u20b92,989-Crore Statue of Unity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You can\u2019t put a price tag on memorials like the Statue of Unity. 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