In this case also the message was that a statue of Patel is being erected but in the process it is destroying Nehru and projecting Patel as someone even taller than Gandhi,” he added.Įminent social scientist and author Achyut Yagnik points out, “Other than Gandhi, who had given up active politics, there were three stalwarts of the freedom movement – Nehru, Patel and Subhas Chandra Bose. They said that they wanted to build a Ram temple but what was carried out was destruction of Babri Mosque. But what was achieved was the destruction of another. “In both cases, the projection was to create something.
The media always shied from reporting whether this iron collection drive was a success or not,” said an Ahmedabad-based political observer. In the same way, officials in Gujarat never divulged how many tonnes of iron were actually collected. They never came clear on the money and bricks collected for the temple.
While bricks were collected for the proposed temple in Ayodhya, this time they carried out a drive to collect iron pieces from across the country for this statue. Observers have also pointed out how there is a distinct similarity between the manner in which the BJP had carried out its movement for building a Ram Temple in Ayodhya in the late 1980s and the movement for building Sardar Patel’s statue.Īlso read: Why the BJP Feels It Has to Appropriate Sardar Patel The entire project is being viewed as yet another part of the Sangh parivar’s move not only to appropriate Patel and his legacy but to pit the ‘Iron Man’ against both Jawaharlal Nehru, whom its has vilified to a large extent, and also against Mahatma Gandhi, who was the other and more towering figure from Gujarat. The euphoria is not just missing across the country, but even in Gujarat, where the tribals are threatening to stage a major protest on October 31, Patel’s 143rd birth anniversary, when the statue is to be unveiled. The project is extremely important for the long-term political goals of the Sangh parivar.īut the project has failed to generate euphoria among the masses, something that Modi and his team have been vying for since the idea was floated. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi gets ready to unveil the world’s tallest statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel at Kevadiya in Gujarat, the Bharatiya Janata Party, through its organisation and state governments, has been working overtime to sell the ‘Statue of Unity’ project to the masses at an ideological level.
0 kommentar(er)
