India Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for calm after a number of statues have been destroyed or damaged in different parts of the country. On Monday, a statue of Communist icon Vladimir Lenin was demolished in Tripura, a Northeastern state in India.
The Lenin statue was demolished with a bulldozer soon after the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is centrally in power, won the state election, ending 25 years of Communist rule in Tripura.
Sporadic incidents of violence between followers of rival political parties have also been reported after the election results were announced on March 3.
Prime Minister Modi said on Wednesday that he “strongly disapproved” of the vandalism spree in different parts of the country. He spoke about the issue to Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who said the ministry had directed state governments to handle the incidents firmly.
Modi raised his concerns after the demolition of the Lenin statue started a domino effect. The previous day BJP leader H Raja made a threat in a Facebook post, saying that after Lenin, the statues of EV Ramasamy, who is popularly known as Periyar, would meet the same fate.
That night police arrested two men in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore district for vandalising a statue of Periyar, a Dravidian icon who led the Self-Respect Movement in South India to eradicate social inequality, especially caste discrimination.
Police said one of the two men arrested in Tamil Nadu was suspected to be a BJP worker and the other a Communist Party of India activist.
In the latest incident, a bust of right wing political party Bharatiya Jan Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mookerjee was vandalized on Wednesday at South Kolkata in the state of West Bengal. The Jan Sangh party of Mookerjee was related to Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and was the predecessor of the BJP.
Six students from Kolkata’s Jadavpur University have been detained over the vandalism of Mookerjee’s statue. The bust was partially desecrated and its face was blackened.
The attacks on statues is emblematic of the conflict between the Communists and the right-wing BJP in India. The Tripura win was a landmark for the BJP, which has recently been on a quest to create a Communist-free India.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist), which has been mulling an anti-BJP coalition for the national elections due in 2019, has been further weakened by the BJP’s Tripura move.
Jo Snow
You should know since you do not have the testicles to show your face, just a hazy scrotum like a male French letter!
And you might be a North Korean spy called Won Soj!
Play the game not the player!
Maybe you are a social miscreant who was not taught about how to play team sports.
Trust me – sledging is illegal at the Olympiad!
If you have nothing wise to comment the right and civil and proper thing to do is to keep mum!
It is called internet etiquette.
Vince Cheok I doubt he is a Chinese. Likely anbindian troll with Chinese name.
Michael Zhao
I am a young 70 year old Malaysian Chinese. When as a victim it comes to reliving and reminiscing about Colonial travesties and depradations and depravities there is no room for irony, satire, parody or lampooning!
You gave me the impression that you were indulging in trolling.
When you blog for fun or leisure be conscious of the sensitivities out there.
Peace be with you!
Vincent Cheok
"Trolling diatrabe… Young man, educate yourself before you open your mouth!"
-Maybe you should educate yourself on what irony is…
Michael Zhao
Since you are Chinese I shall excuse your trolling diatribe.
But do read – https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/inglorious-empire-review-shashi-tharoors-indictment-of-the-british-in-india-20170810-gxt8hh.html
Shashi Tharoor was once Under Secretary of the United Nations.
Young man, educate yourself before you open your mouth!
I live in Malaysia. With the upcoming federal election as with previous elections I am reminded of the divide and rule policy and conditions in the law left behind by the British.
"India for Indians … Say no! To foreign contamination!"
-Says a Chinese man whose family emigrated to Malaysia, and who now lives in Australia.
I can understand the destruction of ‘foreign’ statues – those with ‘foreign’ faces, including Lenin or even Queen Victoria or even the Mughal Sahibs but it is a sacrilege to destroy ‘Indian’ statues whether Tamil, Punjabi, Bengali or even Communist or Christian or BJP if the statue face is undeniably ‘Indian’, whatever the caste, skin colour or sect or political inclination. India for Indians! Better to remove ‘statues’ like the English language, cricket and the Sahib mentality! Be proud to be indigenous and culturally ‘Indian’. Say no! To foreign contamination!