Thank you dear subscribers, we are overwhelmed with your response.
Your Turn is a unique section from ThePrint featuring points of view from its subscribers. If you are a subscriber, have a point of view, please send it to us. If not, do subscribe here: https://theprint.in/subscribe/
The recent controversy of allotment of land for building a memorial for the late Prime Minister
Dr. Manmohan Singh indicates how much we as a nation are obsessed with building memorials and statues for our past political leaders.
This article is NOT paywalled
But your support enables us to deliver impactful stories, credible interviews, insightful opinions and on-ground reportage.
The countless number of statues built across the country for Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru, and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar outnumbers the 700000 ( approximately) villages in our country. Most of these statues installed in the middle of an important road junction of the town are unkempt, ill-maintained and left unattended with years of neglect. They are cleaned up for a photo session only during the birth and death anniversaries of the leaders. Many statues have even been converted into bird nests with bird droppings everywhere. It is an unpardonable insult to the great leaders who served the nation in various capacities. Their statues are left exposed to heat, dust and rain without any cover.
It is reported that barring the memorials of a few prominent leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru, Smt. Indira Gandhi etc., the other memorials of lesser leaders crave for attention. How many of us know and visit memorials of Sri. Lal Bahadur Shastri at Vijay Ghat, Charan Singh’s memorial at Kisan Ghat, Rajiv Gandhi’s Vir Bhumi, Giani Zail Singh’s Ekta Sthal, Babu Jagjivan Ram’s Samtha Sthal etc, lying unknown and obscure in the 245 acre site of Rashtriya Smriti Sthal off the Yamuna river in Delhi. Like all the others, Dr. Manmohan Singh’s proposed memorial will only guarantee him a future of public obscurity and oblivion.
Let us not build a memorial for one of India’s most humble, simple and humility personified Prime Ministers who never clamoured for power, position or publicity. Let us build a Centre for Excellence in Economics in the name of Dr. Manmohan Singh. Let us name the school as Dr. Manmohan Singh’s School of Economics in the lines of London School of Economics. This would be a befitting tribute to one of the most revered economists in the world and the distinguished economist our country has ever produced. The reforms brought in by him as a Finance Minister under the leadership of late Sri.P.V. Narasimha Rao 1991 was path-breaking and paved the way for India’s emergence as a major global player. In 2008 when the global meltdown engulfed the majority of the nations in the world, under the leadership of Dr. Manmohan Singh our country was relatively insulated from the impact of the meltdown. It speaks volumes of his financial acumen in steering the country safely out of trouble.
We have eminent National Institutes like the AIIMS for Medical education, IITs for Engineering, IIMs for Management education and IISc for Science and Research. But there is no such institute for economics. We need distinguished economists, policy makers, RBI Governors, Planning Commission members to advise the government on various policy matters.
This proposed Dr. Manmohan Singh’s School of Economics will fill the vacuum and pave the way for the emergence of top class economists in our country.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.
