Figures of strife

Figures of strife

FEBRUARY 4: Where there are idol-worshipers, can the idol-breakers be far behind? We have seen and suffered both, and in almost every part of the country. The latest instance of a long-running series of ludicrous battles between groups and communities some trying to damage images and the aggrieved others taking it out on other icons has been reported from Mumbai.

It was an Ambedkar statue that was the victim of casteist vandals for the umpteenth time, and Shivaji on a pedestal was the predictable target for the provoked Dalits, and the wanton desecration of both the titan figures was bound to prolong the inane vendetta. It was a repetition of the tragicomedy that had led to many a bloody riot in and around the metropolis as well as elsewhere in Maharashtra. If this sounds as unfresh a script as any from Bollywood, Kerala has scored an unflattering first on this count.

Shock will not be confined to the state, proud of its comparatively sane politics, over the vicious defilement of venerated socialreformer Sree Narayana Guru's statue in the wake of the CPI(M)-affiliated Students Federation of India's agitation against the management of a college named after him. The Marxists, who had rightly scoffed at the infantility of the Naxalite offensive against Calcutta's `imperialist' statues decades ago and railed at the removal of Lenin busts from Moscow's public squares, seem to find nothing immature about the affront to the memory of a revered mentor.

More like the Mumbai conflict has been the war of statues in Tamil Nadu. The flames of caste violence in the southern districts of the state have continued to be fanned by the competitive desecration of the statues of community leaders and legends by Thevars and Dalits. To those concerned in some of the statue-sensitive areas of the country, the cycle of violence has suggested a solution that should have been seen as facile even before proving a failure. If statues create strife, this recipe runs, abolish them.

This has been seriously put forward as a wayto end the Ambedkar-Shivaji war on history. The idea, unimplementable in a state ruled by an ideology that is almost synonymous with idolatry, has been given a try in Tamil Nadu. The DMK government itself last year announced a moratorium on statues, particularly in the southern districts, besides rechristening transport and other bodies named before after oft-idolised leaders and personages, past and present. It should be little wonder that the solution has not worked.

Riots have recurred even without being provoked by statues. They are bound to do so, as long as the social conflicts are not tackled at the root.

Statues can be, and often are, sacred symbols. They can and do come in handy for the professional riot promoters out to outrage sensitivities, for the political forces seeking to fish in bloodied waters. But, if there are no statues, the trouble-makers can always invent other provocations. Nor can the people be protected and inter-community peace promoted by posting police cordons around statues.The real solution will arrive, only when parties and political players come to see the wisdom of relying on more substantive issues than statues, which everyone is content to leave to the mercy of elements in less trying times.