- People traversing from one place to another in our country would have noticed an extremely ubiquitous phenomenon dotting the landscape, both urban as well as rural, where pictures, banners, cutouts, flags, and statues adorn every street. There is no restriction whatsoever for placing these adornments. It could be birthday celebrations, mourning deaths, successful achievements, overseas tours, victory commemorations, information on missing persons, religious announcements, and the list could be exhaustive and endless. From small-time celebration to grader scale of commemorations, erecting embellishments will never stop.
PC: SG Suryah
- Of course, there are our politicians who are an extremely special category not wishing to forego any opportunity to bask in the limelight even if it entails hanging their full-blown pictures in the air for eternity to grab attention. Optics indeed do matter, you see. The case of political parties is even more colorful characterized by an in-your-face approach where right from party insignia to leaders’ portraits, to messages, is unabashedly displayed at every nook and corner of habitations. If it is election time, the dance of democracy ensures the customary banners of a party, and its leaders compete with other contesting leaders cornering every conceivable space available.
- We, the citizens, are so used to seeing the paraphernalia associated with flags, statues, and some such other embellishments that it no longer surprises us. The fact is said that most of us hardly care or notice but invariably get amused by the way our leaders want us to register their presence. Now, all political parties are upping the ante to gain even more attention by resorting to often bizarre and grandiose ideas. Aam Aadmi Party has announced to install gigantic national flags all over Delhi. People may recollect how a former Congress MP had earlier installed a jumbo flag in the capital at Connaught Place.
PC: Vijayta Lalwani
- You are aware of how Bharatiya Janata Party built a 600-foot statue of Sardar Patel in Gujarat. Shiv Sena of Maharashtra is building a towering statue of Shivaji in Mumbai dwarfing Sardar Patel’s monument itself. Not so long ago, the BSP supremo went about building parks and monuments to hammer home the point of Dalit identity. Of course, the British-built central vista was meant to overwhelm natives with its top-down layout. The idea of establishing statues of blowout dimensions is obviously meant to commemorate iconic personalities in the hope to impress upon the electorate.
- No wonder, consolidating vote banks is of primary importance to our political class. The moot point to ponder over here is does a secure democracy needs these supersize symbolisms to make the rest of us get impressed rather than ensure development assumes greater priority. The obvious answer is not at all. Nonetheless, the Indian political class is known to lay tremendous emphasis on size where one-upmanship vis-a-vis my flag/statue/portrait is taller than yours rules the roost. And indications are amply clear that it is not going to get reduced in the coming days as well. So be prepared fellow countrymen to get inundated by incessant bombardments.
