Beyond statues, leaders must do walk the talk

Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to have initiated a new era of statues –One cannot dispute it as the record-breaking structures represent the great ideals preached and practiced by the tall figures. The 597 feet Statue of Liberty – world's tallest -- represents the values and philosophy and more than that the actions of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel who unified the nation breaking the barriers of princely states and Nawaabi regimes.

The latest in the series is the 216-feet Statue of Equality – of Shri Ramanujam, the 11th century Bhakti saint who promoted the idea of equality in all aspects of living including faith, caste and creed.

India is a country of statues. Every city, town and even some villages have statues of leaders from the bygone eras. For instance, Hyderabad has an entire Tank Bund Road dotted with the statues of great Telugu personalities including historic figures and poets, apart from many structures at key traffic junctions.

Our leaders are good at prophesying and telling others what to do. They inaugurate statues, garland them as annual rituals and issue statements on the principles enunciated by our forefathers who had all taught us equality, justice, common good, tolerance and peace. But when it comes to practice, we seem to follow only the British Raj philosophy – divide and rule. The greed that led to the downfall of many rulers, the hatred that caused unmitigated hardships and the violence that resulted in the deaths of several innocent people are all just to history books that none seem to remember.

The Preamble of our Constitution also speaks of Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity which have also been taught to us by the leaders whose statues we inaugurate day in and day out.

All these seem like a morning alarm which we tend to shut and go back to sleep. Else, we will not be having the kind of mess in our social fabric. In one of my previous columns I spoke of the tu-tu-main-main game that our politicians indulge in. The hatred, repeated N times with high decibel publicity, tends to become practice and this is what is happening to our society.

We have many examples of the social divide caused by intolerance and perpetuating injustice about which our current set of leaders speak a lot but do nothing to correct the situation. In fact, this negativity has the danger of becoming the rule of the day thanks to the way we accept these even by passive ignorance.

The love jihads, the beef killings, the Valentine Day violence, the shameful atrocities of various communities and of course the economic injustice and suppression all speak volumes of the fact that we have forgotten what the leaders whose statues that we worship as annual rituals.

What is distressing is the fact that the intolerance and violation of the Constitution and every rule book has begun to spread to some schools – the foundation of education of the future generations. The recent incident of stopping girl students with 'hijab' from entering a school in Karnataka that too for writing the exams is a sign of this mentality.

What makes things worse is the unchecked, uncontrolled, unacceptable and irresponsible expression of opinion being expressed across social media. Everybody thinks that they have an unlimited freedom as if they are in a WWF bout without any rules of the game.

We are a nation which follows political leaders in larger numbers than social leaders or logical thinkers who unfortunately are reduced to a microscopic minority. The latter lot is even trolled with hatred to the core if they happen to point out any wrongdoing. Our so-called leaders take their own sweet time even to make passive comments such as "this violence is unacceptable".

This takes us back to the intro (the journalistic expression for an introductory para!) of this column. It's great to have statues of the great people but we must also remind ourselves of the great values that they taught and practiced.

Let me take the example of a common social practice of bribing the police when we break the red signal or enter a no-entry lane. I have heard many times the senior police officers telling us that the 'giver' is to blame equally as the 'taker' of the bribe money. These officers conveniently forget the fact that 'taker' hardly refuses to accept bribes. This creates an impression that the cop in the street has a target to collect from the man in the street. In Maharashtra, we have a classic ongoing case of top police officers involved in alleged bribery and 'collection' scam.

The in-court and outside-the-court arguments point out to a Fountainhead phenomenon – corruption flows from the top. There is an extension to this – money flows to the top (which incidentally beats the natural principle of water flow!). What if the police officers stop accepting bribes? Mountains won't crumble. It will set a good example for the people down the line to follow.

Those who refuse to send 'collections' to the top need not fear punishment transfers to Gadchiroli (a Naxal violence-infected district in Maharashtra). Once you are in the uniform and accept a transferable job, you should be prepared to serve anywhere and not crave for plum postings.

Much as corruption, reforms also begin at the top. Reforms should not end up as mere commandments to the man in the street, they should be practiced by the men at the top in various spheres of life and society.

All this starts from questioning the wrong doings. This is our right. Let's exercise it with responsibility. Let's tell our leaders that statues are fine, but we have a statute too to be followed and respected. How about installing large plaques of the Constitution Preamble in prominent places such as Government offices and police stations? We shall discuss a step-by-step process, or SoP as they say in the new generation lingo.

Statue Statistics

♦ The Preamble of our Constitution also speaks of Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity which have also been taught to us by the leaders whose statues we inaugurate day in and day out

♦ The 597 feet Statue of Liberty – world's tallest -- represents the values and philosophy and more than that the actions of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel who unified the nation breaking the barriers of princely States and Nawaabi regimes

♦ The latest in the series is the 216-feet Statue of Equality – of Shri Ramanujam, the 11th century Bhakti saint who promoted the idea of equality in all aspects of living including faith, caste and creed

♦ Hyderabad has an entire Tank Bund Road dotted with the statues of great Telugu personalities including historic figures and poets

♦ It's great to have statues of the great people but we must also remind ourselves of the great values that they taught and practiced

(The author is a Mumbai-based media veteran. He is known for his thought-provoking communication)