In response to Sujit De and Mohad Rahamani thoughts about the Statue of Unity I would like to respond , Shiv. Visvanathan a sociologist said “The bigger the statue, the bigger the lie, and that’s how I see it”. Given the displacement of tribal people of the earth in the area, it is more of a displacer than a unifier”. Sujit De in Herald Peoples Edit November 5, 2018 rightly said “had Sardar Patel got life in the statue of unity he would be crying with sadness after seeing the plight of the poor people all around I believe that. It is alleged that people’s hard-earned money is being wasted on projects like Statue of Unity, though several villages of the area are still deprived of basic facilities like schools, hospitals and drinking water. Those forests, rivers, waterfalls, land and agriculture supported them for generations, the poor and the farmers survived on them. But, everything is being destroyed now.
When people are raising their issues, they are persecuted by police and are not ready to listen to their plight. Good Governance is good government. The concept relates to the quality of the relationship between government and the citizens for whom it exist to “serve” and protect”, i.e. “citizen centric”. To put it more preciously and simply governance means the way those with power use that power. The concept, therefore, has political, ethical and economic dimensions. Four pillars of governance are accountability, transparency, predictability and participation. There is, however, considerable frustration and dissatisfaction amongst the people, especially the weaker sections of society, about the apathy, irresponsiveness and lack of accountability and concern for their lives.
Respect given to persons who have sacrificed their lives is not in statues but in reaching out to people in their name”. We have a lot of respect for Sardar Patel who led a very simple life and I am not sure if he would himself approve of such a grand project.
It would have been a real tribute to him had the money been spent on welfare programmes named after him to alleviate hunger of millions and to improve the lot of the tribals who live there.
