Liberty Enlightening the World
The government of the Indian state of Maharashtra says it plans to build a statue off the Mumbai (Bombay) coast to rival New York’s Statue of Liberty.
BBC News
It is true that Shivaji was a great Human, a pride warrior!
But how justified is this squandering project? The preliminary costs suggested are around $4.5 millions, which are around Rs 220 millions. How much time it will take to get back the invested money and than earn profits?
We should not forget that this money is not being produced by the government, it’s all the money collected by taxes.
Furthermore, the planned statue is being compared with the Statue of Liberty.
Statue of Liberty is not a sign of some fighter or war, it signifies friendship, and it signifies liberty! Its appearance relates to the ancient roman goddess Libertas signifying freedom from totalitarianism, oppression and slavery!
The statue of liberty was not a US government’s project. It was given to US by some businessmen and people of France as a free-will. That statue simply signifies a will of freedom from any sort of tyranny whole round the world. The seven spikes on its crown represent the Seven Great Continents and the seven seas. The torch in her hands represents the enlightenment from the darkness of collectivism, slavery, ignorance, oppression and exploitation. The uplifting foot signifies the movement of liberty spreading whole round the world for every citizen of world anywhere. It is a call for liberty, democracy, political equality and capitalism!

On the other hand, Shivaji has always been posted as the pride of Marathas by Shiv Sena, which not only raised issues of discrimination on behalf of religion, but also raised issues of regionalism and reservations on behalf of statehood and keeps reiterating that “more should be done to promote the rights of “local” people in the state rather than “outsiders”!. Obviously, the statue of Shivaji will represent Marathi pride. Just some days ago Maharashtra was burning in fire on the issue of statehoods, UP, BIHARI, Tamils, and Marathi etc. The Hindu Muslim rift demonstrated by Shiv Sena is already a problem for peace, freedom and enlightenment. Where the need is to remove the darkness of dogmatic religions and superstitions and discriminations on behalf of language, native place and religion/cult/creed, the idol of Shivaji is constantly (and wrongly) being represented to strengthen it.
The plan is to erect the statue of Shivaji of about same height as that of statue of Liberty (305 ft=92.68 m). I wonder how the government is going to symbolize it to represent liberty, political equality, Individual rights, capitalism, globalization and democracy!
On the economic level, the plan may prove to be good to increase further more tourism in Mumbai. But the question is will it be a profitable move? $4.5 million is not a small amount, than it will cost for maintenance, security and arrangements too. So, is there any planned idea of government that how the statue will be adding for the public money and prosperity?
Actually, government never worries to think for the prosperity and profits of those who gives money to it as under compulsory taxation.
One suicide every 8 hours
At a time, when the water and road services of Mumbai are at worst, when farmers of Vidharbha are dying of hunger and committing suicide under the pressures of loans, government has planned to waste such a huge amount of money which has been forcibly collected from the citizens of Maharashtra, it is not voluntary-taxation or free-charity to erect the statue of liberty. So, when the money being planned to be invested on the statue is not donated at free-will and is actually being coerced and extracted from the individuals by the government, than how can it represent freedom and liberty? Literacy rates of Maharashtra are still just 76% so, how the statue will represent the enlightenment?
Obviously, it is nothing but a political ploy of congress government of Maharashtra (which failed to face the major problems at every facet) to woo the Marathi votes by encouraging the regional feelings. It is again a plan based on gaining short term profits totally concerned with Congress and which surely will cause greater loss for the Individual citizens in general. The money collected by Individuals under coercive compulsory taxation is again being used for political profits of a fraud political party and politicians. So, isn’t the project showing the tyranny, oppression of Individuals by collectivist government? And the blind public will again get involved in the dark feelings of cultism, regionalism, linguistic priorities and emotivism and will hurt themselves furthermore against enlightenment.
I term it as a slap on the face of Democracy, Capitalism, Freedom, Enlightenment and Individual Liberty!