Maharashtra Diary: An act of god or an act of fraud?

The last time the BJP was tripped up by Shivaji was in 2019 when a sycophantic book Aaj Ke Shivaji - Narendra Modi was published. The parallel drawn between Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and the prime minister shocked people.

Shivaji’s direct descendants—Shivendra Raje Bhosale of the Satara branch of the family, then a BJP MLA, and Sambhaji Chhatrapati, the BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP from the Kolhapur seat of the Chhatrapati kings—called for a ban on the book. Protests broke out across the state and the book quickly sank into oblivion.

Come 2024, and PM Modi finds himself in double trouble. A 35-foot bronze statue of Shivaji that was unveiled by Modi on Navy Day (4 December 2023) came crashing down on 26 August 2024, barely eight months after the inauguration. Chief minister Eknath Shinde blamed the Indian Navy for poor construction. A defence spokesman was quoted as saying, “A private contractor constructed it. The Indian Navy only installed the statue.”

With the Konkan coast being no stranger to gale-force winds, storms and cyclones, the blame-game led to howls of protest. Photographs revealed that the statue was hollow. As more details came tumbling out, the opposition pointed to the fact that the sculptor commissioned for the project, 24-year-old Jaideep Apte from Thane, happened to be a friend of the chief minister’s son.

As outrage grew, Apte sought to defend himself in an interview to a sympathetic Marathi newspaper Sanatan Prabhat, brought out by the Sanatan Sanstha. A frightened Apte tied himself in knots, claiming he was given only six months to complete a statue that would normally have taken three years.

He also confessed that he had no experience of sculpting such tall statues. Prior to this project, his experience was limited to sculpting statues that were three to six feet high. To make matters worse, he alleged that he was given verbal instructions by the Indian Navy to increase the height to 35 feet. Apte has been arrested.

Rajeev Mishra, who heads the Maharashtra government’s directorate of art, issued a statement that the department had approved a height of only six feet. They had not been consulted and had no information on who permitted the height to be increased to 35 feet.

Another piece of the jigsaw puzzle claimed that it was not the Indian Navy but the state Public Works Department (PWD) that had issued the work order. Was a tender invited before awarding the contract to Apte? No clear answers are forthcoming with BJP and Shiv Sena (Shinde) leaders more intent on condemning the opposition for politicising the issue.

The Maharashtra police have arrested the structural consultant, Chetan Patil, who told the police he was only responsible for designing the platform on which the statue was installed. Meanwhile, Apte has gone AWOL. “Someone higher up is giving him protective cover… otherwise it’s unbelievable that the police could not find Apte when there is such massive protest and anger against the incident,” posted senior newsman Sudhir Suryawanshi.

As further details emerged, it only got worse for the PM. On 12 December 2023, barely a week after the statue was unveiled, Sambhaji Chhatrapati, a direct descendant of Shivaji, wrote a letter to the prime minister objecting to the statue. The objection was apparently related to the flouting of standard parameters and protocol. The letter also questioned the hurry in which the statue had been built and unveiled, wondering if it was designed to reap political dividends before the Lok Sabha elections scheduled for early 2024.

On a parallel track, the PWD claimed it had alerted the Navy coastal officer—the Navy being responsible for the upkeep of Rajkot Fort, where the statue is located—on 20 August 2024 about the deteriorating condition of the statue, its nuts and bolts having corroded. Six days later, the statue collapsed.

Charges and counter-charges related to the costs involved have further muddied the waters. While no official figure or statement has come forth, leaders of the ruling coalition claim the cost of the statue and installation was a mere Rs 2.44 crore.

Former chief minister and Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan claimed that while the sculptor was paid Rs 26 lakh, on paper, the contract was for Rs 38 crore. A report in the Indian Express claimed that the PWD had spent Rs 2.03 crore to build three temporary helipads at Malvan in Sindhudurg (where Rajkot Fort is located) for the choppers carrying the PM and the NSG to land. Documents showed that the tenders were invited on 30 November for the helipads to be readied before 4 December, confirming allegations that it was a rush job.

The tone and tenor of the prime minister’s public apology on 30 August at Palghar rubbed salt in the wounds of Marathi pride. Saying that the PM’s ‘apology’ smacked of arrogance, Uddhav Thackeray smacked banner photos of Eknath Shinde, Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar with a slipper as part of the ‘jode maro andolan’ or ‘slipper protest’ on 1 September. The 12th descendant of Shivaji Maharaj, 76-year-old Shahu Maharaj II and 84-year-old Sharad Pawar walked arm-in-arm during the march in Mumbai. This insult to Shivaji would be an issue in the assembly election, they warned.

What incensed people even more was the prime minister drawing an equivalence between Shivaji and Savarkar. PM Modi said that while he did not mind apologising for the collapse of Shivaji’s statue, Maharashtrians should not forgive those who have been insulting Savarkar.

When Devendra Fadnavis raked up Nehru’s book, The Discovery of India, with its reference to Shivaji’s plunder of Surat, Pawan Khera rebutted saying he should have read the book, as Nehru had revised the first edition. “While in jail, Nehru couldn’t access references... He wrote letters to P.R. Devgirikar and Shriprakash on 3 May 1936 requesting references, which were then incorporated into the subsequent edition,” Khera elaborated.

Amidst claims and counterclaims of who looted what (Surat or the Mughal treasury) and odious analogies, historians, writers and journalists rallied together to emphasise that Shivaji Maharaj had little in common with either Modi or the BJP. Shivaji did not distrust Muslims: on the contrary, his most trusted generals, including his personal bodyguard Ibrahim Siddi, were Muslims.

Shivaji fought for freedom and not a ‘Hindu Rashtra’. He did not wage a Hindu-Muslim war, rather he fought to shake off the yoke of the Mughals, which many Hindu kings including the Rajputs had been unable to do. He did not discriminate on grounds of religion or caste.

Surat, they reminded us, was a flourishing port, a hub for Dutch, British and French traders. Shivaji’s daring raid on Surat was designed to raise resources to sustain his army. By dragging Nehru into the mix, it was the BJP which was politicising the issue, said Congress leader Nana Patole.

Which political coalition in the state will capitalise on the continuing controversy, and to what end, is a matter of conjecture. What is clear however is that the BJP will not find it easy to defend itself from charges of malfeasance, expediency and ineptitude. What they call an act of God seems more like an act of fraud.