Museum, a just award for Vikrant’s service to India

The decommissioning of the aircraft carrier Vikrant had been on the cards for the last 8 to 10 years. The purchase of the second aircraft carrier, the Viraat, in 1986 was an indication that her elder sister would in due course get decommissioned. The future of the Vikrant was also planned and it was widely believed that converting the ship into a museum would be a just award for her service to the nation. After being converted into a museum, it was felt, it would be positioned at a suitable berth in Mumbai for the people to visit. Today, the prospect of the ship being converted into a museum is dim, and it’s getting dimmer by the day.

It’s apparent that certain environmentalists are available at a price to various organisations to raise a hue and cry against projects which aren’t attractive enough. The organisations and environmentalists also purchase the media to publicise their acts. A reporter of the largest English daily going deep into thismatter is therefore very satisfying and there’s a ray of hope for the future. Appointing certain committees and consultants are means available to some for getting a third-party to say `no’ for something that one does not have the courage to do on one’s own. IAS officials have resorted to such tactics for the last 50 years, having gradually copied a style from our politicians.

We have had five prime ministers in the last three or four years. A project of this nature deserves to be cleared within 24 hours since the Navy has their own experts who would have already studied the project exhaustively. It cannot be reasoned as to how berthing a ship near the Radio Club can lead to traffic congestion in the port. The same way, one can’t follow the suggestion made by the reporter about the income likely to be generated for the Navy by the museum. It is common knowledge that even routine maintenance of the ship in terms of chipping, painting and ship-husbandry will cost a lot more than the income generated by themuseum. Navy, state or central government are never going to make business out of the museum. Most museums, worldwide, are running on donations/contributions by various trusts and are government funded. The Vikrant can be no different.

One cannot help but comment upon the composition of the committee headed by Mr R R Sinha with Mr S R Kulkarni and Dr Shanti Patel as members of the team which is studying the project. What are the qualifications of these three gentlemen? The readers are entitled to know this. Their expertise in maritime matters such as this is suspect. The more one goes into this controversy the more one is convinced that the Navy has already reached a position of `no return’ and have to declare it a `non-starter’ after seeing the composition of this committee deputed to study the proposed location of the Vikrant museum. Even now it is not too late for the Navy to take a hint about the present status of this project and look for alternate options available to them for this fine ship. TheVikrant must already be quite disgusted with the treatment meted out so far to her by the `experts’ after her decommissioning. The options can be many viz send her to Alang for breaking, shift the location to Chennai where she always enjoyed the best hospitality or sell it to Mr Pradhan to convert her into a hotel who after his experience with Zhen Don, the ship wreck off Bandra, must now be the wisest guy in this trade in the country.

It is tragic when one hears about the reasons of the imminent failure of this project, the wittiest reason being “no work can be achieved in this country without gift packets.” Who will pay whom in this project? Advice to the Navy is if they are really interested in the project being a success, please find people who are influential in the state/central government and most importantly the Mumbai Port Trust. If the Vikrant had some power left in her she should, one fine morning, cast off all her mooring lines on her present berth and sail out without any crew members anddisappear into high seas and go somewhere where she gets a little affection from the citizens, reach a port where there is no autonomous trust like the Mumbai Port Trust, where the state governments do not have to take subsidy from the central government to finance a project of national prestige, where the environmentalists and labour union leaders do not decide the fate of an aircraft carrier which has been, for over three decades, done service to the motherland. One has no option but to hang one’s head in shame and say Mera Bharat Mahaan.

(The writer is a second-year business management student at the Indore University)Save the Vikrant

Mumbai has been selected as the permanent home for the Indian Navy’s greatest warship the Vikrant which is to be converted into a museum for posterity, but the port trust continues to drag its feet over the proposal.

“Nothing goes by emotion in this country,” a port trust official replied when asked whether the emotional appeal of the historic shipwasn’t above all the objections put forward against the chosen location.

If you feel as strongly as Amit Harsh, write in to us at. SAVE THE VIKRANT, C/O EXPRESS NEWSLINE, EXPRESS TOWERS, NARIMAN POINT, MUMBAI- 400 021. Or fax your letters on 288 58 27 / 285 2108 / 202 2139