It could turn out to be the tallest modern-day statue in Tamil Nadu, or perhaps even the country. Be it a gesture of supplication or political one-upmanship, a statue of ‘Tamil Thai’ (Mother of Tamil), taller than even the 133-foot-high Thiruvalluvar statue at Kanyakumari, built during an earlier DMK regime, will soon tower over Madurai, a city synonymous with Tamil language. Chief minister J Jayalalithaa announced in the assembly that the grand statue would cost her government 100 crore and would, symbolically and perhaps even in physical dimensions, resemble the Statue of Liberty in the US.
Jayalalithaa said the statue was aimed at spreading the culture, tradition, literary treasures and architectural excellence of Tamils. The statue of saint-poet Thiruvalluvar in the sea off Kanyakumari in the state’s southern end, constructed at a cost of more than 6 crore, is the tallest in the state now and took nine years to erect. The height of the statute alone (without the pedestal) is 95 feet, and the total weight is about 7,000 tonnes. “The Tamil Thai statute will be taller than the Thiruvalluvar statute,” said a senior official in the department of Tamil development. Many worried about statue towering over Meenakshi Amman temple
“We will identify a location in Madurai for the statue soon,” he said, adding it would be sculpted from high quality stone. Like the Thiruvalluvar statue, the outer layer of ‘Tamil Thai’ would be covered with fine granite stone, he said.
In the assembly, Jayalalithaa said parks resembling the five terrains – kurinji (mountains), marudham (agriculture land), mullai (forests), neidhal (sea shore) and paalai (desert) -- will come up around the statue. It is not unusual for political parties to attempt to build massive statues that would reflect the cultural ethos of the state to which they belong and to assert their political identity.
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