Unlike Colston or Columbus, Ambedkar Memorial statues deserve their place in public spaces

Detractors may argue about the wisdom of expensive subaltern ornamentalism, but for the
intended audience of statues and monuments erected by BSP supremo Mayawati, they are
historic justice.

In Lucknow, on the banks of the river Gomti, stands not just one statue but a
whole collection, and in a breath-taking setting. These statues, each bearing a
name, are of freedom fighters, social reformers, and politicians. Some are
familiar, others less so. But all are Dalit or Adivasi. The effect is startling, for this,
and another similar site in Noida, is India’s only exclusive celebration of the Dalit
and Adivasi contribution to the making of the modern nation. This is the
Ambedkar Memorial Park, formally known as the Bhimrao Ambedkar Samajik
Parivartan Prateek Sthal.

The complex is a feat of monumentalism, spread over a hundred acres in the

heart of the capital city of India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh. Made in
marble and a sandstone reminiscent of great seats of power – such as Delhi’s
South Block or the Red Fort – the park is composed of vast open spaces dotted
with bronze fountains, Ashokan columns, urns, friezes and stupa-like edifices. An
alley of 124 monumental elephants, evoking the avenues of ram-headed sphinxes
in Egypt’s Karnak and Luxor, leads to a massive inclined plane that is flanked by
two tall statues of Mayawati, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and head of
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and her mentor Kanshi Ram, both holding sheaves of
wheat.

In various cities across the world, statues of figures from the past are being
hauled down during protests for racial equality. In Bristol, United Kingdom, a
crowd toppled the statue of Edward Colston, a 17th-century merchant who built
himself a reputation as a philanthropist on the back of his slave trade fortune. In
the United States, various statues of Confederate leaders and explorer
Christopher Columbus have been torn down or defaced. In Belgium, several local
authorities have voted for the removal of statues of King Leopold II, architect of
Belgium’s viciously exploitative colonial enterprise in Congo.

These iconoclastic gestures prompt us to think about the political significance of

statues and monuments more generally, including in India. The statues in the
Ambedkar Memorial Park raise questions as to whether and why some statues
deserve their place in public spaces, and about the politics of their presence, or of
the absence of others.
Moving the British out of sight
Most regimes seek to outlast themselves by raising monuments as physical traces
of their presence and might. They install statues to mark continuity with a
glorious past or to honour figures that exemplify that past, and highlight a
connection between those who erect them and those they seek to
commemorate.

In India, the British peppered the territory with historical figures, not only to
commemorate their contributions to the British empire, but to build a visible
legacy for that enterprise for generations to come. After Independence, many of
these statues were removed or relocated in less conspicuous places. In Delhi, the
absurdly large statue of George V placed by Edward Lutyens at India Gate was
relocated to the little frequented Coronation Park, alongside more obscure firang
dignitaries.

The Congress party in power sought to mark its presence by erecting marching
Gandhi in countless localities. Decades later, with the Congress’ dominance long
gone, M.K. Gandhi’s ubiquitous presence has become the focus of contestation by
rival political parties, which see him as a symbol of the Congress, rather than a
symbol of the nation. Could this happen with other national figures too?

Modelling Ambedkar, his struggles

In Lucknow, the centerpiece of the Memorial Park is a 112-foot-high stupa
dedicated to Ambedkar. As one enters its cool, dark interior, a vast bronze statue
of Ambedkar seated on a throne-like chair, looms out and modelled on the
famous statue of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, dominates the space. The
message on the statue simply says: ‘My struggle of life is my only message.’
On either side, like the stations of the cross in a cathedral, a sequence of different
moments of Ambedkar’s life are cast in bronze. The dominant portrayals of him
are as the architect of the Indian Constitution, and of his late conversion to
Buddhism as the religion of fraternity.

Ambedkar’s heroic life is connected to the present and to the patron of this vast
enterprise, Mayawati, in a composition in which the two stand facing each other.
Mayawati saw her own achievement as the first Dalit chief minister of Uttar
Pradesh as the rightful culmination of Ambedkar’s struggle for social justice. It
was their shared struggle and success that she sought to commemorate through
the vast memorial complex.
The location of the Ambedkar Memorial Park in the heart of Lucknow, adjacent to
Gomti Nagar, a posh residential colony where mostly upper-caste business,
bureaucratic, political and judicial elites reside, was a deliberate statement, a
conspicuous and defiant assertion of Dalit presence in the public sphere.

The location of the Ambedkar Memorial Park in the heart of Lucknow, adjacent to
Gomti Nagar, a posh residential colony where mostly upper-caste business,
bureaucratic, political and judicial elites reside, was a deliberate statement, a
conspicuous and defiant assertion of Dalit presence in the public sphere.

Claiming Ambedkar
It is undeniable that the relatively uncontroversial memorialising of Ambedkar is
directly connected to the far more controversial apotheosis of Mayawati herself,
their twinning imprinting her presence in the public consciousness. In each
iteration, she appears exactly as she has been seen throughout her political
career, sporting her signature short hair and a handbag, symbols of her modernity
echoing Ambedkar’s suit and tie.
The sheaves of wheat that she and Kanshi Ram bear indicate their earthy origins,
firmly locating them in India’s soil, even as their enormous statues aspire to touch
the sky. The repeated use of stone elephants as guards of honour to the heroes
simultaneously makes them regal and echoes the BSP’s blue elephant election
symbol. During the 2012 Uttar Pradesh assembly election, the Election
Commission of India ordered that every elephant be wrapped in yellow tarpaulin
and every Mayawati statue be concealed under plywood boxes to create a level-
playing field during the electoral contest.

However, these memorial parks are also intended to leave a much longer legacy
than electoral anecdotes. By placing her statues contiguously with Ambedkar,
Kanshi Ram and others, Mayawati assimilated herself into the Dalit pantheon
headed by the Buddha, whose religion Dalits have chosen to adopt. Generations
of detractors may argue about the wisdom of such expensive subaltern
ornamentalism, but for the intended audience, there may be a sense of historic
justice being done.

So, not all bronze statues of past heroes need to be symbols of injustice.
Sometimes, they are monuments to the enslaved. In the case of the Ambedkar
memorial, they might have won greater admiration had they not been linked so
obviously to the clay feet of the living.

Mukulika Banerjee is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the London School of

Economics and Political Science, and Director of the LSE South Asia Centre. Gilles
Verniers is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Ashoka University and Senior
Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research. The views expressed are
personal.
Bahujan Samaj Party’s Mayawati and Kanshiram