The statue of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in the blue three-piece suit, the Constitution held in the left hand and right hand raised to make a point, is barely visible under the leafy castor tree and shrubs outside D. Parasuramulu’s house in Inupamula village of Telangana’s Nalgonda district.
Equally out of place is another statue of the social reformer on the grounds of the Kattangur police station, some 15 km awayfrom Mr. Parasuramulu’s house.
Five years after they were moved ‘for safety purposes’ when work on expansion of the Hyderabad-Mumbai NH 65 began in December 2012, there is little effort to restore the two statues.
“There is no one to take care of them, or decide on a site. The statue is in our custody now,” the Kattangur police said. The statue was removed from a single-road junction, and none of the villagers or leaders have come forward for its re-installation. However, the figure is treated with due respect on all important occasions, an official said.
Mixed reactions
The seven-foot statue outside Mr. Parasuramulu’s house, however, draws mixed reactions from villagers and travellers.
“A woman in a car asked us to turn the statue towards the south, as the west-facing figure was inauspicious (for travellers),” said his wife, Laxmi Bai.
Mr. Parasuramulu, a retired toddy-tapper, says villagers are also not happy because they believe figures of the dead kept at home bring bad luck.
“We don’t reject the figures. It's been four years now, and all these years our small house has been a landmark on the highway,” he says.
However, M. Jayaraj, a village committee member, said the repairs and re-installation of the statue will be done by March 2018. “With ₹9, 000 from the NHAI, we raised a platform and put up steps,” he said.
Dr. Ambedkar is not alone. Sharing the canopy is a decrepit statue of former PM Rajiv Gandhi.
