All Talk and No Action

I have read that piece, I wonder if any of these statues and castles mentioned have statue of the maker/owner?

And justifying the self-obsessed Mayawati's statue/park building because the Dalits will feel proud is totally not acceptable because all the examples given are built by ruler's fund or private donations.

You cant justify this in a democracy, Mayawati is acting like a ruler, hence the outrage.

@allthecrap - See, we do know a lot of old empires building statues of their rulers. again, the funds were used from the public treasury (taxes collected). Also, though a Sanjay Gandhi National park or Rajiv Gandhi Sea Link may not have the statues of these two men, they are named after them, mostly, forever now.

And, I don't agree about the democracy bit - don't political parties name roads and other random pieces of infrastructure after the politicians from their parties? Don't they install statues? So, why are we after Mayawati?

Why I liked the article is that it didn't pass judgement. Even if I may not agree with Mayawati, the article helped me to atleast make an attempt to understand probable reasons for her current obsession.

This article actually helps us come to terms with why Mayawati is actually doing what she is doing, but nevertheless, full marks for the intention, zero marks for the what she has actually done.

The difference is (Almost in 90%+ cases) the infrastructure projects are needed to help the people/economy. And naming them is after thought. Here Behan Mayawati thinks in reverse direction, She think about her statues and then build a park around it. And Why would anyone want to build park after park (One or two are fine) so costly, even this park was around 600Cr+?

And the difference between ruler and democratic elected CM is, Rulers are forced on people so they can do what they think is right, they may be selfish and they are not answerable to people. Whereas CM should think about people first.

And for a change she is the only human who is putting her on statues. That's totally self indulgent activity.

@thecrazyguy / Rohan - Agree with you :-)

@allthecrap - See, the point of the article is to explain her actions, which, Jaitirth Rao has done a good job with.

Also, not every naming ceremony is an after thought. Some things are built primarily to attract attention to the donor / ruling party politicians.

While city dwellers like you and me may have reservations about Maya, the fact that she is a CM tells us that there are people, Indian voters, who are happy to have her occupy that seat.

Even though I don't think high of Maya (or most politicians for that matter), I do believe we need more of such non-judgmental pieces, which help us to dissect an action and increase our existing bank of knowledge on history and politics.