India's billion-dollar battle to build the world's biggest statue

The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Thursday, March 28, 2024


India's billion-dollar battle to build the world's biggest statue
This photograph taken on April 18, 2018 shows the under-construction "Statue Of Unity", a monument dedicated to Indian independence leader Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, overlooking the Sardar Sarovar Dam near Vadodara in India's western Gujarat state. The world's biggest statue is rising in a remote corner of India to honour an independence hero but it could quickly be outdone by a monument to a Hindu warrior king in the sea off Mumbai. In a burst of nationalist fervour, around one billion dollars is being spent on the two giant effigies, each more than twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty. Sam PANTHAKY / AFP.

by Rajesh Joshi



SARDAR SAROVAR DAM.- The world's biggest statue is rising in a remote corner of India to honour an independence hero but it could quickly be outdone by a monument to a Hindu warrior king in the sea off Mumbai.

In a burst of nationalist fervour, around one billion dollars is being spent on the two giant effigies, each more than twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty.

A 182-metre-high (600-foot-high) tribute to independence icon Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat state will be the first to dwarf the Spring Temple Buddha in China, currently the world's biggest statue at 128 metres (420 feet) in height.

Pick-axes are also swinging for a 212-metre-high likeness of 17th-century king Chhatrapati Shivaji, resplendent on a horse and brandishing a sword, which should dominate the Mumbai shoreline from 2021.

An army of 2,500 workers -- including several hundred Chinese labourers -- is toiling around the clock to put 5,000 squares of bronze cladding on the figure of Patel so it can be ready for inauguration on October 31 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The 29.9-billion-rupee ($430-million) "Statue of Unity" overlooking the isolated Sardar Sarovar Dam is a pet project of Modi.

He has predicted it will attract "hordes" of tourists, as the Statue of Liberty does in New York.

Visitors will be able to access a viewing gallery 153 metres up -- about chest height on the huge standing figure.

But they will have to travel 250 kilometres (150 miles) from the state's main city of Allahabad to get there.

'Iron Man' emerges
There is also a political motive to the mega project, with India heading into a campaign for a national election early next year.

Patel was deputy to India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru after independence in 1947 and Modi's nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party says his name has been unfairly overshadowed by the dominant Nehru dynasty.

Patel became known as the "Iron Man of India" by persuading -- through talks and a hint of force -- some 550 princely states to become part of India after independence from Britain in 1947. He died three years later.

Many Hindu nationalists feel it was a slight when Patel was asked to step aside to let the secular Nehru become the country's first leader.

"Every Indian regrets Sardar Patel did not become the first prime minister," Modi said while campaigning in 2013.

"Modi has used Patel's legacy a lot in his election campaigns," said Ghanshyam Shah, a former professor of class politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

"He is very likely to use the Statue of Unity during the upcoming campaign but I am worried about how it will influence voters," Shah added.

The opposition Congress party says that a plan to change the Nehru Memorial museum in New Delhi into a centre devoted to all of India's prime ministers is another bid to taint Nehru's name.

In 2016, Modi laid the foundation stone in Maharashtra state for the statue of Shivaji, a hero of the 80 million strong Marathi community based in the state.

Hindu nationalists have also adopted Shivaji, who made his name battling the Muslim Mughal empire. Critics say the 36-billion-rupee ($515-million) statue is a way of winning Marathi votes in next year's election.

Fuelling the fervour, the government announced last week that the word "Maharaj", or king, had been added to the title of Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport.

Statue politics
"The BJP has been appropriating icons for some time," said Sudha Pai of the Indian Council of Social Science Research.

"Patel has been used to wipe out the Nehru legacy. The BJP wants to change the way history is perceived and show that the right wing was as important in India's freedom struggle."

Preliminary work has started on the controversial project -- with a museum, park and helipad -- on reclaimed land two kilometres (1.5 miles) out to sea.

Environmentalists and thousands of fishing workers oppose the statue because of the threat to fishing stocks.

The price of the monument is certain to rise, analysts say and the state government has already changed the design to bring down costs.

How it will eventually look and when it will be finished remains in doubt.

India's statue politics often fall victim to "hard economic reality", according to Badra Narayan, a professor at the Pant Social Science Institute in Allahabad.

An overrun is inevitable, according to I.C. Rao, head of a Mumbai citizens' group, who has questioned the cost and safety of the Shivaji design.

He said finishing the statue on time, would be "an impossibility even for the Trojans".


© Agence France-Presse










Today's News

September 4, 2018

Raging fire tears through Rio de Janeiro's treasured National Museum

Egypt unearths one of oldest Nile Delta villages

Brazil's first human, a 'priceless' loss from Rio's museum fire

Exhibition explores the UK premiere of Jackson Pollock's work at the Whitechapel Gallery 60 years ago

Van Gogh was murdered claims new film at Venice

Velazquez's ladies in waiting spruce up struggling Spanish town

UAE postpones Da Vinci unveiling at Louvre Abu Dhabi

The Ashmolean's autumn exhibition explores the history of a fascinating cultural phenomenon: Magic

India's billion-dollar battle to build the world's biggest statue

Exhibition at Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg engages Chinese ink traditions

Exhibition features Book of Hours from the 13th to the 16th century in Quebec collections

Miller & Miller to hold gentleman's collectibles auction

Flowers Gallery appoints new Gallery Director Jennifer Francis to lead global operations

New Director at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg

Kunsthalle Basel presents a new work by Bulgarian performance artist Zhana Ivanova

Speculative installation is Austrian contribution for the London Design Biennale 2018

India Pavilion presents an installation focusing on the labour-intensive setting of the production of indigo

Clifford Ross's new monumental work 'Light Waves II' debuts at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center

Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature opens a solo exhibition dedicated to Kohei Nawa

Justin John Greene presents a new suite of paintings at Simon Lee Gallery

Japan House London opens 'Biology of Metal: Metal Craftsmanship in Tsubame-Sanjo'

CHART 2018 end of fair report

Shannon's now accepting consignments for their October 25, 2018 Fine Art Auction




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful