Keeping with the anything-you-can-do-we-can-do-better spirit of the times, the Maharashtra government will plant a gigantic statue of Shivaji (four whole feet taller than the Statue of Liberty) into the placid blue of the Arabian Sea. The bronze colossus is set to be among the 10 biggest statues in the world, but the question is — what does it announce besides misguided machismo?

Statues make powerful statements about their time and context — from the moment they are erected in great pomp, whether they live on as abiding symbols or outmoded relics, or whether they fall spectacularly from grace. In the opening sequence of La Dolce Vita, a giant plaster statue of Christ flies over Rome, suspended by cables from a helicopter, arms outstretched in irrelevant benediction. In a memorable send-up of the scene in Goodbye Lenin, a huge overturned bust of the communist leader is flown over newly unified Berlin. In real life, the toppling of statues has become the framing moment for momentous historical change — remember Saddam Hussein’s famous fall in Baghdad’s Firdos Square? It’s no wonder that back home, political squabbles are routinely fought over civic symbols. The mine’s-bigger-than-yours political contest is only too apparent in states like Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu (recently, Mayawati tore down her own statue for not being sufficiently overpowering).

But then again, cultural takeaways can change, even around fixed statues. The symbolic meanings of the Statue of Liberty have mutated over the years, from the days when it was a French gift signifying the universality of American ideals and the stirrings of liberty in other lands. It only began to be a symbol of welcome to immigrants after Emma Lazarus’s poem with its moving line about “huddled masses yearning to breathe free”. In Maharashtra’s current political climate, as Shivaji becomes a rallying point for those who persecute scholars and vandalise libraries and Raj Thackeray’s virulently anti-migrant vision threatens to pervert the very essence of Bombay, this statue makes its point clear enough. But who knows, in a different, more large-hearted Mumbai, this statue may connote something altogether different.