Rethinking Indian sculptural heritage in the modern world

India Today

16-07-2025

India has always built for the long haul. Temples, forts, paintings, works that travel across centuries, outliving the creators, refusing to be forgotten. Something new has been rising across the subcontinent. Not just temples or memorials, but statues, and not modest ones. Giants.From Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat to Bhimrao Ambedkar in Maharashtra, India's recent sculpture boom seems less about sculpture, and more about memory at scale.advertisementThe statues are no ordinary. Rising hundreds of feet into the air, the arts have become the symbol of inspiration. The Statue of Unity towers at 597 feet, making it the world's tallest.
The Statue of Belief, a massive form of Shiva, sits at 351 feet in Rajasthan. And the Statue of Equality, honouring Ramanuja, stands 216 feet high near Hyderabad.Built of bronze, steel, and alloy cores, they are designed for permanence, but also for visibility.But beyond the measurements, what do these statues actually say?WHEN STONE WAS A MEDIUMIndia's sculptural history is long, rich, and precise. From the earliest Indus Valley terracotta figurines to the Yaksha and Yakshi statues of Mauryan times, the human form was never just a form, it remained a way to convey the message to the next generations.By the time the builders of Ellora and Elephanta chiselled gods out of caves, the idea had already taken root, sculpture wasn't just art, it was a way to shape belief. It taught, warned, inspired, and recorded.The Chola bronzes, especially the iconic Nataraja, were not only religious icons but also expressions of movement, balance, and cosmic rhythm, ideas frozen into metal.The gigantic Gommateshwara Bahubali statue at Shravanabelagola, carved in the 10th century CE, remains a marvel, standing over 57 feet tall, with no structural support, weathering monsoons and centuries alike.Even Ashoka's stone pillars, scattered across the Gangetic plain, were early uses of sculpture as political broadcast, messages of morality, carved into public stone.The tools have changed. Where once hands held chisels, today artists rely on 3D scans, CNC machines, and imported alloys.Ancient bronze casting is now aided by computer modelling. This isn't a rejection of the old, but a reformatting.WHO BUILDS, WHO BENEFITS?The questions are not only artistic. They are civic. These statues cost hundreds or thousands of crores. They reshape local economies, land use, and political maps."You don't build a statue five hundred feet tall unless you're trying to shape more than stone, you're trying to shape the story." said Naresh Kumar Kumawat, an Indian sculptor.advertisementWho builds them? Often, global firms and engineers. Who gains? Politicians claim symbolic victories. Tourists take selfies. Locals get a spike in footfall, for a while.What's often missing is the public conversation.The Statue of Unity drew protests from displaced tribal communities. Others sparked debates about the cost of memory in a country still struggling with healthcare and education gaps.THE PROBLEM WITH SPECTACLEIn earlier times, sculptures were placed inside temples or on town crossroads. People gathered around them. Worshipped. Asked questions. Paid attention."Every monument speaks twice, once through its figure, and again through the silence around why it was built." added Kumawat.Today, attention has a shorter span.A statue is unveiled, drones film it, headlines run, and then, silence. The sheer scale overwhelms the need to think.That's the risk with monumental art: it looks impressive, but what does it really mean?Will the next generation stop and feel something in front of these giants?Or just walk past them on the way to something else?India has always carved its values into stone. The question is, what values are we choosing to carve now, and are we ready to live with them?- EndsMust Watch