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Indira Gandhi finds a home in Calcutta

Arup Chanda in Calcutta

Guess whom Marx, Engels and Lenin will have for company at Curzon Park, the heart of Calcutta?

Indira Gandhi.

Bengal's Marxist government has ordered the installation of the late prime minister's statue in downtown Calcutta.

This decision comes just when West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu reiterated the need to forge a common front with the Congress to oust the Bharatiya Janata Party government and extend support to a Congress-led government at the Centre.

After Indira Gandhi's assassination in 1984 the West Bengal Congress party had demanded that Calcutta's Red Road be named after her. The ruling Marxists agreed, and the road in the maidan was renamed Indira Gandhi Sarani.

The Congress also demanded that Calcutta's Dumdum airport be renamed the Indira Gandhi airport, but the Left Front government did not agree.

However, the Marxists agreed to install her statue in the city.

In 1992, the state's public works department, which maintains all the statues in the city, commissioned sculptor Ramesh Pal to cast a bronze statue of the late leader. The statue was ready within six months and cost the state exchequer Rs 600,000.

However, the 12-feet statue could not be installed because the West Bengal Congress turned down locations in many parts of the city suggested by the state government. It demanded that the statue be installed in the Esplanade area where statues of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Mahatma Gandhi are located.

After a six-year tussle between the state government, the Congress and the army over the location of the statue, Basu signed the file last week.

The statue will be installed at the south-east corner of Curzon Park, near Raj Bhavan.

Congress leaders are happy with the location. Said a Congress leader, "We are happy that the Marxists have finally admitted that Indiraji deserved such a place because she did a lot for Bengal."

After the Congress approved of the location, Basu asked the public works department to beautify the spot which was occupied by the Metro Railway. The statue is likely to be installed on November 19 – her 82nd birth anniversary.

While Jyoti Basu had known Indira Gandhi from their days in London and enjoyed a close relationship with her, his comrades do not share his enthusiasm for the late leader. Before imposing the Emergency, she met Basu secretly, along with then Congress chief minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray.

Twice she imposed President's rule in Bengal and was a bete noire for many CPI-M leaders. After her assassination when the party flag at the CPI-M headquarters in Calcutta was flown at half-mast, questions were raised by party cadres.

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