STATUE CULTURE IN AP

THE STATUE CULTURE IN ANDHRA PRADESH
Prof. Col Dr. K. Prabhakar Rao,

Other day, I was going for a walk through the congested street in the evening amidst thick fumes of automobile exhaust supplemented by swirling smoke from burning filth at a roadside dust-bin. The municipal truck was lifting a roadside dust bin and flies swarmed out. My eyes burned and watered. Through a hazy vision, I saw a dull and faint figure at a street-side. As I drew closer and when I wiped my eyes, the vision was clear and the figure, I found to be a statue wrapped in a dirty gunny cloth and tied by ropes. I felt pity for the man in the statue- form. The reel ran violently in my head and I recollected statue-culture in our state, in particular.
Statues are erected as a love and respect in recognition to the services and achievements of individuals usually after their deaths. But there are occasions when the statues are also erected during someone’s life time. These men can be termed as living dead men. Such occasions are rare. I felt for the way things are happening with us. In fact, statue culture eminated from the Greeks who erected statues of Greek gods and mythological figures in cities, near temples, ports and public places. Slowly, the culture spread to all Christian countries. When the English men ruled us, they erected statues of Queen Victoria. King George and of the English Generals and Admirals. After gaining independence, from them, we went on erecting statues of our leaders and removed alien statues with contempt.
There was a time when there were many statues of Mahatma Gandhi. Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose spread all over India. At some places, statues of Dr. Ranjendra Prasad, Tilak, Patel, Lal Bahadur shastri, Ambedkar, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were erected. Then, in different states, local leaders were honored such as Annadurai, Mahatma Phule. Ramdas,MG Ramachandran, Kamraj, Lohia, NTR, and Rajaji. Statutes of legendary heroes such as Rana Pratap, Chatrapati sivaji, laxmibai, Durgavati, Basaveswara, Bhagat Singh. Jhansiki Rani, Durgavathi, and Azad and Savarkar have been erected in different corners of our country showing our admiration to them. There has been a rat race among various sections of people to glorify their leaders based on castes. Now a days, one finds innumerable statues of Ambedkar at every junction in villages, towns, cities of our state and at times; these are erected at a distance of few meters from one another. In the melee, the father of the nation has been dumped out and a stage has come when we have to really search for his statue to pay our respects. Now Mayawati the CM in UP is erecting thousands of statues of kanshivam and her, spending crores of rupees. What a shame ?

At some places, statues of Gandhiji do not resemble him as he has black hair with a debonair look and he is devoid of his long stick. AT times, the crooks, remove, the stick and insert an empty bottle of rum in his hand. Earlier Gandhi statue was present at Langar house cross roads. One every festival, flgs were tied to his neck. I recall an incident when I went to Orissa to visit rock-out caves at Udayagiri and Khanda girl and Hathi Guppha caves of king Kharawela fame. In the, adjoining park, I went to ease myself and a behind a thick tree, (kindly spared to live) I found a heap of dry leaves. I comfortably emptied my bursting bladder in to the heap to my great relief while closing my eyes. When I opened my eyes, I was aghast as I saw a bust of father of Nation staring at me angrily and soaked in urine and I felt miserable and ashamed; probably, the bust was uncovered under the impact of flowing stream of urine. I was not to be blamed. How did I know that the bust of Gandhiji would be buried in the heap of filth out of all the places on the earth? I bowed to the statue removed it and kept it aside at a clean place. I slapped my cheeks hard for the folly and I brought a bucket of clean water from a nearby pond and washed the statue to my satisfaction. I prayed to the old man and he would have pardoned me. Why not ? He even pardoned Nathuran Godse who pumped lead into him? There are many such statues lying neglected. Vultures and crows sit on the bald heads while white dropping flow down the cheeks. Then, we hear that the statues of Gandhiji are blasted off, heads out off, be-headed and arms broken. I saw a Gandhi statue that was repaired with broken limbs and neck. The limbs were not properly attached. It was looking as if Gandhi was doing disco. I called him Disco Gandhi. Why erect these statues when we can net respect them ? I saw a statue of Gandhi on a roadside standing on two iron rods. There were no legs. Head was also on a rod as plaster went off at the neck. One eye was missing too.

I find that in our villagers, Netaji is highly revered than in towns and cities and villages of Bengal. In metropolitan cities, we find Subhas as a congressman with a Gandhi cap, dhoti and Kurta than sporting full INA ceremonial uniform giving him imposing look. Congressman never wanted him in that way and the erstwhile governments did everything in their hold to undermine and underplay him in all aspects of image and his memory. In AP villages, Subhas is always seen in full INA dress. Unfortunately, at times, his sword is missing with only scabbord remaining. At times, he is a top a stallion which looks more like a well-fed Donkey, Wild ass or mule. Some times, the animal is highly underfed and resembles “Roznette” of Don-Quixote fame. The Tragedy is that these statues are unveiled by some ministers, MLA or atleast a local hoodlum posing as a leader. Most of the leaders were hoodlums or criminals once and in india criminals always get seats for various elelctions and also sure to win by muscle power or money. None bothers for minor details in the statues.
Ambedkar statues are found in all places in different sizes, shapes and colours. Many do not resemble him and one has to imagine him after seeing the book, suit and the typical raised finder. The most tragic part is the finger is not in the real direction what the late leader meant. Some times a wrong finger is lifted. The finger is found in all possible positions and ways of imagination. The statues of Gandhiji and the Ambedkar are found in slums amongst filth and debris which the leaders failed to clean in their life time. What a tragedy and disrespect tothese great men ? Statues of NT Rama Rao are found in all the villages after Telugu Desam came to power and mostly he is found with his usual twist of the hand some do not look like him with short height and with frown on his face, probably, he is annoyed for the way he has been stabbed in the back and dessimated. Now a days, we do not find many, statues of our great Amma. Indira Gandhi. One finds mostly the busts and the sculptures are so bad that she looks like witch in an English film. Poor, beautiful lady must be cursing all of us for our disservice. Statues of Jawahar lal Nehru are generally erect while at some places he holds a struggling dove in his hand. At many places rajiv statue are made such that he is greeting people. Every one knows that he lost life while greeting people. AT times, a smile is seen on his face for all the ills we are facing to day in Kashmir which is the thoroughly bungled. Shastri, Jayaprakash, Rajendra Prasad and Patel are no more relevant to us now. Rarely their statues are seen. But, we do find few half naked busts of Potti Sriramulu who starved himself to death to create our state. In villages, we find some statues of Alluri Sitarama Raju with a drawn bow, at times devoid of arrow and looking into distance. Caste politics have created satues of Ekalavya, Mahatma phule, Jagjivan ram etc.Artists have been very ungrateful to Babu Jagjivan Ram with a sphinx like statue at Bashir Bagh at Hyderabad. Som etime ago. The leader is morose and very unhappy that he was deprived of a golden chance by President Sanjeev Reddy to become PM of India. The statue is the rallying point for all the agitations and processions of Dalits leading to traffic jams. Bhaghat Singh is seen with tilted felt cap while Chandra Sekhar Azad twists his moustache. They are generally busts and are more popular in villages and also in UP.
While these in Maharastra are really glorious. Our statues are really very bad. The statue on the bridge at Salarjung Museum some time ago is a testimony to the bad art and cockeyed imagination. The statue looked like a demon with a lathi-type sword in his hand. The stallion was like a Donkey. It is a disgrace to the memory of great Chatrapathi Sivaji, by us. It was replaced.
Now a days, it appears that the Govt. is toying with the idea of erecting the statues of Tom, Dick and Mary (Yellayya, Mallayya and Pullayya in Telugu) in the city. Recently they have erected statues of slain police officer Umesh Chandra IPS and that of Late Madhava Reddy a Minister who was also eliminated by the Naxals, with an fare to the burning of spleen of many in the city . Does slaying by the Naxals, warrant erection of the statue of the victims ? What are the real contributions to the society by them? Earlier, many police men including a DIG, Inspectors, Sub Inspectors and Constables were killed in Naxal violence. Do we have atleast one of their statues? Then why these favours ? Sri Pada Rao, the able speaker of congress ,was killed in cold blood by the naxals . We just forgot him. Unfortunately, he was killed in TD Regins and he belonged to the congress. Sri Hayagrivaehary the veteran congress leader also was eliminated by naxals and he vanished in to past. Have we not forgotten the legendary Komaram Bheem who fought cruel Nizam police in Adialbad Ranges and fell to Bullets 60 years age while fighting for Tribals –rights ? We even forgot distinguished journalists. Where is Late Shoibullah khan, the fearless editor of Nizam’s era who was murdered in day light by the ‘Razakars” because he condemned Nizam’s policies. At this date, entire streets of the city would be filled with some official or minister’s statues who are close to the top or to appease a section of society.
It is not to denounce those who are no more. But should we go to the extent of erecting a statue for some of them ? In our state, the police has been facing Naxal problem for the last 60 years and it has been viewed as a law and order problem. IT has not been declared as insurgeney where centre could intervene and send Army or Para military forces. Deaths in retaliation by Naxals would definitely result and some of us have to pay for it. Have not scores of Indians went down fighting the invaders in medieval times and also in recent times? Do we have statues for all of them ?
Govt. should go all out to support families of victims and just not ape our sister-states. There are other ways of showing recognition to the brave and dead. Example should be drawn from defence services where innumerable officers and soldiers smilingly gave up their lives fighting the enemy for defense of the motherland. Many have been awarded PVC and MVC but their statues do not litter the streets. In fact erecting statues is amounting to denigrating them. The statues rot in sun and rain, dust and fumes gets discolored, and at nights gambles settle at the base, drink and solicit women of low virtue. The men of dubious character. brave army men walked in to certain death in face of enemy and sacrificed themselves in bitter and grim battles while those for whom statues have been erected were shot and blown-up as sitting ducks while traveling in official cars. They did not offer any retaliatory fight to merit a statue. Their armed gurads sat with a folded carbine and removed magazine.
In our state, the police is under severe pressure due to Naxal problems and they are demoralized and vexed up due to a very long attrition between them and the Naxals. They are also bitter that many of them die in actions. Their feelings have been aired in public by slogan shouting and going berserk during the funeral processions of the slain officers and men. Probably, it has become essential to pacify them by the Govt and keep them in good humor. Hence their statues are in the city. But difference should be made between the distinguished and deserving and others who also ran at the race.
A question also arises why we have not been generous to our great scientists such as Sir CV Raman, Khorana, Tagore, Bhaba and Chadra Sekhar for their international achievements ? They really deserved more than the routine officials and ever-polticking men of dubious character.. WE find favouratism, mischief and politicking in everything that is possible on the earth. The statue culture brought by our Late NT Rama Rao who got built 36 statues on the tank bund facing dirty waters should stop
Sadly Akkanna and Madanna were saved by NTR. Otherwise, entire streets would be filled with the ill conceived and ill made statues and poor citizens would have no place to even walk. God save the poor Ap Wallahs from these statues and the adjoining ladders for garlanding.
It is a great relief that the Govt of AP has not yet started a corporation for the selection, election, erection, care, damage and maintenance of statues in AP State under one of the ever efficient and all know type IAS guys or IPS guys dethroned from Police higher posts waiting for a happy birth with all the facilities, no accountability and no work to do. God has really saved us. The poor corporation also would have been put up for sale like other corporations and PSU. We have been miraculously saved by the almighty, the most benevolent and the merciful. Let him further bestow his divine blessings on all of us, the bel-eagured and harassed, residents of this poor state ruled by glorious Sata vahanas, Telugu Chodas, Vishnu kundins. Bruhatpalayans, Chalukyas and Kakatiyas in a glorious manner in bye gone days of chivalry.