Skip to main content

Disney is coming to Sabarmati

 Imagine a statue of Nathuram Godse welcoming tourists to Mahatma Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat. What is being planned for Sabarmati by Narendra Modi is quite as bewildering as that. Having killed the soul of Jallianwala Bagh with the renovation of the historical site, Modi, with the Chief Minister of Gujarat, is all set to convert Gandhi’s Ashram into an Indian version of Disneyland.

A sum of Rs 1200 crore has been set aside for the project. Apart from modernised museums and a modified amphitheatre, the Ashram will now have food courts and shopping complexes besides a parking space for 200 cars. Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in a prominent public place in Ahmedabad, sculpted by none less than Kanti Patel, will be transferred to the new Sabarmati. That’s a clever strategy for reducing the visibility of the statue!

The sparrows and squirrels that now share space with human beings will vanish with their habitat-trees.

Human beings were already dispossessed of their lands for the construction of the Sabarmati Riverfront Park when Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat. The remaining few human beings will be thrown out from the area now by the current new project. Gandhi will move out by himself, I guess.

Hriday Kunj

Gandhi’s beloved residence, Hriday Kunj, will also vanish when Bimal Patel’s firm, HCP Design, Planning and Management, will bring its bulldozers and earthmovers to the 54-acre land. This is the same firm that is building the Central Vista in Delhi, Modi’s pet project, a palace for himself – a project which felled 1838 trees from the world’s most polluted city.

Modi usurps Gandhi at Hriday Kunj

Modi dared to replace the Mahatma in Khadi India’s calendar in 2017. He dared to sit on the same veranda of Hriday Kunj where Gandhi used to sit with his charka, yes the same one Modi usurped. The irony becomes shocking when you realise that Modi is an RSS man, the same organisation to which Naturam Godse belonged.

Recently Modi bhakts evicted Nehru from posters of freedom fighters. Will Gandhi be now evicted from his own Sabarmati? One thing is certain: Gandhi won’t like the Disneyland that Bimal Patel will build in Sabarmati. Who cares, right? We are in a new India, one which is Disneyfying history itself.  

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanSeptember 2, 2021 at 6:48 PM

    Hari OM
    Shocking. I had not heard this news before reading this. I am aghast. That photo had also escaped my notice - and all I see in it is mockery. That Godse is now being 'worshipped' by RSS and other strong nationalists is beyond bizarre... and I see nothing on the diplomatic horizon to demonstrate that other world powers are paying any proper attention to what is going on, to have a word in his ear, "look here old man, this just isn't cricket..." ai-yoh... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 2, 2021 at 7:20 PM

      The current India frightens me because a vast majority of people including some of my own friends are supporters of all that Modi is doing. India is moving in a wrong direction altogether.

      Delete
  2. Pooja MahimkarSeptember 6, 2021 at 1:57 PM

    I didn't know about this and this is just horrifying. The Jallianwala Bagh pictures upset me deeply. I remember visiting the place a few years ago and just walking through that lane made me tear up because it made me feel real and imagine the things that happened there, the new pictures barely summon any emotions

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 6, 2021 at 4:50 PM

      Perhaps the most grievous tragedy is that all these changes have ulterior motives whose impacts on the nation's psyche are going to be long-lasting.

      Delete
  3. Rajeev MoothedathSeptember 6, 2021 at 10:57 PM

    These days news persons do not cover these things widely and so much is happening so fast that most people do not know of the many steady changes being made...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 7, 2021 at 5:03 AM

      One of the tragedies in India now is that popular news media have become lapdogs. Others are driven underground almost.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

Coming-of-Age Poems

Lubna Shibu Book Review Title: Into the Wandering Multiverse Author: Lubna Shibu Publisher: Book Leaf , 2024 Pages: 23 Poetry serves as a profound medium for self-reflection. It offers a canvas where emotions, thoughts, and experiences are distilled into words. Writing poetry is a dive into the depths of one’s consciousness, exploring facets of the poet’s identity and feelings that are often left unspoken. Poets are introverts by nature, I think. Poetry is their way of encountering other people. I was reading Lubna Shibu’s debut anthology of poems while I had a substitution period in a section of grade eleven today at school. One student asked me if she could have a look at the book as I was moving around ensuring discipline while the students were engaged in their regular academic tasks. I gave her the book telling her that the author was a former student in this very classroom just a few years back. I watched the student reading a few poems with some amusement. Then I ask...
8 comments
Read more

How to preach nonviolence

Like most government institutions in India, the Archaeological Survey of India [ASI] has also become a gigantic joke. The national surveyors of India’s famed antiquity go around finding all sorts of Hindu relics in Muslim mosques. Like a Shiv Ling [Lord Shiva’s penis] which may in reality be a rotting piece of a Mughal fountain. One of the recent discoveries of Modi’s national surveyors is that Sambhal in UP is the birthplace of Kalki, the tenth incarnation of God Vishnu. I haven’t understood yet whether Kalki was born in Sambhal at some time in India’s great antique history or Kalki is going to be born in Sambhal at some time in the imminent future. What I know is that Kalki is the final incarnation of Vishnu that is going to put an end to the present wicked Kali Yuga led by people like Modi Inc. Kalki will begin the next era, Satya Yuga, the Era of Truth. So he is yet to be born. But a year back, in Feb to be precise, Modi laid the foundation stone of a temple dedicated to Kalk...
12 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
15 comments
Read more

The Triumph of Godse

Book Discussion Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi in order to save Hindus from emasculation. Gandhi was making Hindu men effeminate, incapable of retaliation. Revenge and violence are required of brave men, according to Godse. Gandhi stripped the Hindu men of their bravery and transmuted them into “sheep and goats,” Godse wrote in an article titled ‘Non-resisting tendency accomplished easily by animals.’ Gandhi had to die in order to salvage the manliness of the Hindu men. This argument that formed the foundation of Godse’s self-defence after Gandhi’s assassination was later modified by Narendra Modi et al as: “ Hindu khatre mein hai ,” Hindus are in danger. So Godse has reincarnated now.   Godse’s hatred of non-Hindus has now become the driving force of Hindutva in India. It arose primarily because of the hurt that Godse’s love for his religious community was hurt. His Hindu sentiments were hurt, in other words. Gandhi, Godse, and the minority question is the theme of the...
5 comments
Read more