[The $408 million gold-colored colossus also spills over into present-day politics. It is considered a trifecta for Prime Minister Narendra Modi: a nod to his Hindu political base, a landmark site in his home state, and a showcase of the nation’s growing prosperity and status as a rising global power.]
By Vidhi Doshi
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The
Statue of Unity, a tribute to Indian independence-era leader Sardar Vallabhbhai
Patel, will
be inaugurated Wednesday by Indian Prime Minister Narendra
Modi and will be
the world's tallest statue. (Photo by Ajit Solanki/
AP/Illustration by
William Neff/The Washington Post)
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NEW
DELHI — It is four times taller than the Statue of
Liberty.
So big, in fact, that it will give India
bragging rights to the world’s tallest statue — a nearly 600-foot creation that
says as much about India’s global aspirations as it does about the political
ego of its leader.
It may seem like a natural choice for an
outsize tribute.
India’s new Statue of Unity, to be formally
unveiled Wednesday, depicts Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, an independence-era
leader credited with uniting the fledgling nation in the 1940s when he served
as India’s first home minister.
But the homage to Patel has far deeper
symbolism.
Patel, known as India’s “Iron Man,” has
become a right-wing icon for Hindu nationalists. And the statue’s location, in
the western state of Gujarat, has been the site of some of the fiercest clashes
between Hindus and Muslims in past decades.
The $408 million gold-colored colossus also
spills over into present-day politics. It is considered a trifecta for Prime
Minister Narendra Modi: a nod to his Hindu political base, a landmark site in
his home state, and a showcase of the nation’s growing prosperity and status as
a rising global power.
“This memorial to Sardar is going to become a
worldwide tourist attraction,” Modi boasted in a promotional video in Hindi
about the statue. “See our height, measure this nation’s height. This is what
we want.”
Hindol Sengupta, who wrote a Patel biography,
said projects such as the statue are Modi’s way of trumpeting India’s ascent.
“When Modi says he wants India to take its
rightful place as “vishwa guru,” or world teacher, he actually means it. . . .
In Modi’s worldview this statue is a crucial part of the signaling of the rise
of India and the presenting before the world that rise in visual terms.”
The statue will stand at 597 feet, or 177
feet higher than the world’s tallest statue, China’s Spring Temple Buddha in
the central Henan province.
Coincidentally, the bronze cladding for the
Patel statue was shipped from China because Indian foundries lack the expertise
and equipment to go this big.
The statue is being assembled by about 4,000
laborers working around the clock. It depicts Patel, wearing a traditional
Indian dhoti wrap around his legs and a shawl, towering over the Narmada River.
In 2013, ahead of the previous general
election, Modi sent trucks all over India to collect scrap metal for the
structure. According to the statue’s makers, the metal was melted and used to
create the base — a symbolic act to represent the nation. A museum and
audiovisual gallery beneath the statue will showcase Patel’s life story and his
contributions to India’s struggle for independence.
Wednesday’s unveiling also is considered the
unofficial launch of Modi’s campaign for reelection next year.
He already has another giant statue of a
warrior king in the state of Maharashtra, set to be ready by 2021.
Some critics cringe at the images intended to
project wealth and power. Art historian Shukla Sawant called it “paternalistic”
public art.
“It’s the size matters, kind of a nonsensical
idea of power,” said Sawant, a professor of visual studies at Jawaharlal Nehru
University in New Dehli.
Still, Modi seems to relish the big-splash
attention of the projects.
“If Sardar Patel had become the prime
minister, today a part of our beloved Kashmir would not have been under
Pakistani occupation,” Modi said to Parliament in February.
The statement was a dig at India’s first
prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, whose vision for a secular, multifaith India
clashes with the pro-Hindu politics of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
The Statue of Unity is a near-replica of a
Patel statue at an airport in the nearby Gujarat city of Ahmedabad.
“Vallabhbhai Patel, through the sheer act of
unifying the modern nation state of India, is more Lincolnesque than most
people realize,” said Sengupta, the author of the Patel biography. “So this is
Modi’s Lincoln Memorial.”
Correction: An earlier version of this
article incorrectly attributed the final quote in the story to Anil Ram Sutar.
It was Hindol Sengupta who made the comparison to the Lincoln Memorial. The
story has been updated.
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