Saturday, December 02, 2006



Whole of Maharashtra was taken aback in the last 2 days. The reason being the desecration of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s statue in Kanpur. Dalits angered by such a behavior towards their beloved Neta could not control their anger and destroyed everything that came in their way. Be it private cars, public transport, or shops, everything was burnt or broken.
A few months back another famous politician’s wife’s statue was vandalized in Mumbai. Protests and agitations started and the whole city saw violent eruptions against the act for a few days.
Was this amount of destruction really necessary? Every time there is a caste or a political party or a celebrity involved in such an issue the common man is the one who suffers the most.
Indians are thought to be emotional. However, this negative outcome of emotions is immoral. Why is it that, when something wrong is done to the ones who are dead, do the people wake up from their sleep and agitate or display such immature acts of respect towards their deceased leaders? Hardly any of those departed are remembered by those activists in their everyday life. Barely do these politicians follow the philosophy or teaching of the ones whom they idolize. Moreover the statues once built are never cleaned.
Moreover, why is that the common man has to suffer in this whole issue. Vehicles are burnt, shops are broken. The recent issue almost charged the government with 12 crores. In addition, those 12 crores was the loss estimated only by the railways. Public transport like buses, rickshaws etc may increase the amount to some more crores.
Moreover, this amount is expected to be paid from our pockets only. Imagine, we paying money for the crime that we have not done.
Moreover, such threatening and violent acts can further lead to a sense of panic in the citizens. Such riots have caused a terror in the localities. Rumors and gossips further worsen the whole situation. Attacking people is such a childish act which is least expected from the people who are elected to protect them and not to harass them.
Statues should be removed. If you have respect for a person, better remember him and respect him. Building statues in their memory is fine, but the organization or the members who build those should take the authority to take care of them. Why has the government to be blamed for such issues? Government has a lot to look after, may be it is not doing its job efficiently, but they should not be blamed for such matters. Moreover in the recent case the governmental organization in the area where the statue was vandalized immediately replaced the severed one with another for a temporary basis. The government did so to avoid the violent reaction of the people. What else is the government expected to do in such a small period.
The government should of course take steps by making the persons who build these statues sign on a written document stating that they would take care of the statues. Due to this the people will come under a law and would surely take care of the statues. Alternatively, a law can be passed on the same. Moreover using technology the statues can be built in such a way that if any one touches them they get a diminutive amount of shock. The shock wont cause any injury but would certainly avoid a person from misbehaving with it.

4 comments:

Tejas said...

Yeah. Some people just love vandalizing property. However, I do believe a part of the blame goes to the state govt for just playing spectator during the Khairlanji killings. The Dalit outburst was expected.

Good blog. Keep writing :)

manzdesai said...

actually......i did nt wanted to touch the khairlanji issue.because it would have led the topic to some other perspective.i just wanted to concentrate on the statue vandalising issue.n yeah..thnx for your comments.do keep reading my blogs n posting in your comments.cya

G. Siva Shankar said...

Everything is politics in India, one way or the other and most of the society is accustomed to this. Fret not, there is hope still for this country with young ppl like u Manasi :)

Good blog....jus ensure u find time to pen ur thoughts..I started off like this and eventually dont find time nowadays to write anything...

Anonymous said...

just to add to this that the govt has to play an imp role...the following is a true story...In Rwanda, Dating back to 1900's there were 2 major groups of people. 80% of rwandans were huttus and some 20% were some tutsis. The 20% tutsis were the kingly people who were rich and strong.. the 80% was the farmerly population. Life was beautiful back then till the French Came in. The French started instigating the guttus aganist the tutsis and even started infusing the govts minds with wrong ideas. (A lot goes in here now which i m not typing in...)After some 10 years the huttus and tutsis fight each other and the huttus are capable of making all the tutsis run out of the country as refugees to uganmda, tanzania, burundi etc. Then the tutsis now get angered, the only tutsis left behind in Rwanda were the highly poor ones who were also disallowed any kind of education etc....Now the tutsis in the neighbouring uganda were high learned people and they come together and plan a attack on huttus with help from ugandan army...Now the stiry gets ambiguous...When the minister of rwanda and the other leaders had just come back to rwanda from uganda after a meeting they all get killed in the airport. Nobody knows whether the french did this or the tutsis did this. But as a result of their minister getting killed the huttus became angry and they started chopping off any tutsi they see in rwanda...this led to the 1994 massacre in which more than a million rwandans were killed and the killing was as crude as "u c a tutsi, grab a sickle and chop his head of"....so govt has to play the most imp role in anything pertaining to violence....why dosent the same happen in australia, singapore, dubai etc......