Playing statue

The over 570 government-run Navodaya schools all over the country will soon have a new visitor. Busts of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi will be put up in every single school,plonked in a greened area called Rajiv Gandhi Smriti Van. More tributes await our former prime minister. Thirty five school buildings are likely to be inaugurated on his birthday,and wait for it,reports suggest that to make his legacy even more lasting,The Navodaya Vidyalaya Old Boys Association is set to name itself Rajivites.

The question is not whether the former prime minister deserves these honours. It is one of propriety. It is whether ruling parties can confuse their own totems and taboos with those of the larger nation. For the current Congress dispensation,honouring Rajiv Gandhi,in iron replicas or sea-links has become a loyalty test. It reminds us yet again of the personality-driven nature of our politics,one lacking in agendas or inner-party democracy. Ask Mayawati,whose sprawling new public spaces in Lucknow albeit with her own towering replicas have drawn considerable flak for wasting public money. But as she has countered,the Nehru-Gandhi familys many memorials over the years are certainly no cheaper and based on the same principle.

A laymans guide to the whos who of Indian politics could well be a walkathon around our public spaces streets,schools and colleges named after the powerful,larger-than-life cardboard cut-outs of contending politicos,and busts and memorials to the ruling elites. It is surprising how easily we tolerate our public spaces being subordinated to the egos of those in power. On the other hand though,given the personality cults and sycophancy endemic to Indian public life,perhaps it is for the better

that the thousands of Navodaya children playing about in Rajiv gardens learn that lesson early.