Iron Man of India. Made with bronze cladding from China
The unveiling of the Statue of Unity has posed a big question in front of everyone. Will Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel get his due with the unveiling of his massive statue, the tallest in the world, in Gujarat, on the banks of river Narmada?
Patel's legacy will henceforth be represented visually as a towering statue to the world at large.
The idea apparently behind erecting the statue has been to pit Sardar against his contemporary Jawaharlal Nehru, who captured the popular imagination as the only towering statesman India had, primarily because the Congress remained in power for the longest duration since India became independent.
The act of raising Patel’s statue as the world’s tallest at 182 feet ends the race to appropriate the leader’s legacy by the right wing.
Patel has been fully claimed by the Sangh Parivar.
The Congress too must claim credit for handing over Patel’s legacy to the right wing by naming every other airport, bridge, stadium, museum and road after Nehru, Indira Gandhi and later, Rajiv Gandhi.
Sardar Patel’s statue has been top on the priority list for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, so much so that on the day of its unveiling, he wrote about Patel’s legacy, calling him the man who unified India.
The statue adds another laurel to India’s achievements because it is the world’s tallest. It stands at 597 feet, 177 feet higher than China's Spring Temple Buddha (now, the second tallest in the world) in the central Henan province.
We have no problem with Sardar Patel's statue. The problem lies in the mindset of the BJP, says @priyankac19 #NewsToday #StatueOfUnity Live: https://t.co/4fqxBVUizL pic.twitter.com/mzVGwx54a6
— India Today (@IndiaToday) October 31, 2018
Ironically, the bronze cladding for Patel’s statue was shipped from China because Indian foundries lack the expertise and equipment to go this big. In spite of the BJP rubbishing the Congress’s criticism about the fact that Sardar Patel’s statue has a Chinese element, the fact remains that the bronze cladding is Chinese — and Patel himself may not have been very happy with it.
The trade imbalance with China has increased under the current regime, and small manufacturers, weavers and artisans are losing out to the Chinese behemoth.
Instead of sincere efforts to take India to new heights, political parties are only busy harping on India’s pristine glory. It reminds me of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio’s lines:
- “My country! In thy days of glory past
- A beauteous halo circled round thy brow
- and worshipped as a deity thou wast —”
- “Well — let me dive into the depths of time
- And bring from out the ages, that have rolled”
India’s freedom movement produced three stalwarts other than Mahatma Gandhi — Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Subhas Chandra Bose. The construction of the Statue of Unity is being seen as an attempt by the right wing to finally claim Patel as its own. The BJP and Opposition parties have been sparring over the statue for some time now. But the question that needs to be asked is — did the Congress that was in power for a long time neglect Patel’s contributions in shaping modern India and in unifying the princely states?
The task of merging 562 princely states within the Indian union was a formidable one and Gandhi entrusted Patel with it. It was a pragmatic Patel versus a romantic idealist Nehru who occupied the national political space in India right after independence.
There have been questions over whether Patel, or for that matter, Bose got their due during the several decades of Congress governance.
Patel has been central to the BJP’s politics. This was the case even when the party hadn’t still been carved out of the Jana Sangh. This was the case because the Jana Sangh, founded in 1951, did not have any leader who was part of the freedom struggle.
Later during NDA 1, the Atal-Advani team was projected in the Nehru-Patel mode where Advani was the hardcore pragmatist and Atal adorned the soft secular persona in the Nehruvian mould.
Modi during his long stint as the chief minister of Gujarat tried to invoke Sardar several times. After his emergence on the national scene, he made the Statue of Unity his priority.
Despite the differences though, there was great bonhomie between Sardar and Nehru. They were co-workers, not rivals, even though Nehru had serious disagreements with Patel over the police action against the Nizam of Hyderabad and apparently called him a rank communalist, according to KM Munshi, a statement often quoted by LK Advani to show that not all had been well between Patel and Nehru.
The fact remains that on Gandhi’s appeal, Sardar gave up Congress leadership in favour of Nehru, thus paving the way for him to become independent India’s first Prime Minister.
Patel and Nehru famously differed over the selection of the first President of India and also, the future of Tibet and the looming Chinese threat that the Prime Minister of India and the Indian ambassador to Peking, KM Panikkar, and others in the Indian foreign office failed to read.
It was Sardar Patel who wrote to Nehru on the real face of Chinese perfidy and malevolence.
Sardar’s letter to Nehru written on November 7, 1950, proved to be prophetic. I quote from the letter:
“My Dear Jawaharlal, Chinese government has tried to delude us by professions of peaceful intention.”
He added:
“There can be no doubt that during the period covered by this correspondence the Chinese must have been concentrating for an onslaught on Tibet. The final action of the Chinese in my judgement, is little short of perfidy”
The letter correctly raised apprehensions over the the annexation of Tibet and the People's Liberation Army coming to our northern borders for the first time in history — as well as the eventual war with China in 1962.
Hence, the narrative of many right wing leaders, including Modi, has always centred around how Nehru messed up Kashmir and China, and if Patel was made the first Prime Minister of India, the Kashmir problem could have been averted.
It is ironic that the statue of the man who foresaw the Chinese threat and warned against the neighbouring country’s malicious intents has now been built with Chinese help — by a man who apparently sees himself as the heir apparent to Patel’s legacy.