Soon after coming to power in 2014, the government engaged a Bahamas-based international consultancy firm, Betaji, Mamaji, Kakaji & Jijaji (BMKJ), to prepare a report on what India must do to achieve 30% growth rate, 100% employment, and global superpower status by November 8, 2018.
BMKJ submitted its report to the government in December 2015. But so far, its contents have remained secret. Last month, an employee of BMKJ who was fired for refusing to link his sperm count to Aadhaar leaked the entire report to me.
All about ‘vikas’
Going through the 560-page report, I was floored by its stupendous insight, which was this: India should not blindly ape the Western model of ‘ vikas ’ (or development) by offering its citizens sops like free schooling, universal healthcare, affordable public transport, libraries, playgrounds, pension, etc.
Instead, India should, the report said, pursue ‘vikas’ by focussing on what it does best: building statues. This is brilliant stuff, as you can see. And it offers two fantastic ideas for a mega statue, either of which could easily take India to the three goals stated above.
BMKJ’s first idea is to junk both the ‘Statue of Unity’ (a Patel statue) in Gujarat and the proposed statue of the great Tamil actor Sivaji in Mumbai. It says that neither the Patel statue (182 metres tall, costing ₹2,989 crore) nor the Sivaji statue (190 metres tall, costing ₹4,000 crore) are ambitious enough, given Indian’s true stature, and I totally agree.
Instead of building such tiny, inexpensive monuments, BMKJ proposes investing in a large ‘Statue of Vikas’. This would be a replica of a coconut shell, with a height of 560 metres and circumference of 16,000 metres. The giant coconut shell would be a grand tribute to the real engine of India’s ‘vikas’: shell companies.
Despite thousands of shell companies in places like Mauritius and Singapore channelling billions of dollars of FDI into India, the average Indian has little appreciation of their invaluable contribution to the economy. So the Statue of Vikas will not only be a symbol of the Indian people’s gratitude to all shell company owners, it will also inspire every Indian to stop looking for nonexistent jobs and blossom into entrepreneurs by starting their own shell companies.
While this is undoubtedly a superb idea, it is the BMKJ’s second proposal that I find more exciting. It is inspired by fresh evidence unearthed by BMKJ’s own team of forensic archaeologists, which revealed that, at the exact same spot where the Indian Parliament currently stands, there used to be grass.
The report presents ample documentation — by way of paintings, scriptural references, and shlokas — which proves conclusively that the land seized by the British in 1921 for the construction of the Parliament building had plenty of grass. And eating that grass was a cow, which attained samadhi at this very spot 12,000 years ago after giving away all its milk to Lord Ram, who was passing by.
Naturally, the BMKJ report calls for building a giant statue of this cow at the very spot where the aforementioned holy cow was standing and where the Parliament currently stands. This cow statue, to be made of panchgavya specially reinforced with fibre glass, would be 4,000 metres tall. The horns alone, made of Italian marble boiled in purified Ganga water, would be 5,000 metres tall.
Taller than Everest
Measuring 8,849 metres from hoof-bottom to horn-tip, it would be taller than Mt Everest. It would be visible not only from the moon but also from Beijing and New York, sending a clear signal to the world that when it comes to standing monuments, India’s is bigger than anyone’s else’s.
The BMKJ also suggests that the cow’s tail should be partially elevated at an angle of 56 degrees, leaving an open space above the rump for a jet fountain. This fountain would be modelled on the hydraulic Jet d’Eau in Geneva, but with cow urine replacing water. Bovine liquid will exit the statue’s posterior at a speed of 800 litres per second and shoot up 500 metres into the sky, its spray blessing citizens up to a three-kilometre radius with droplets of the holy fluid.
At night, the statue will be lit up in the official colours of saffron, dark saffron and light saffron, making for a spectacle more spectacular than the discredited Taj Mahal. The whole project, to be funded by selling all 125 crore Indians (except 5.5 people) into modern slavery, will ensure both 100% employment and 30% economic growth for the next 100 years.
As for the Parliament building, which would have to make way for this monument, the BMKJ proposes shifting it to Nagpur, where it rightfully belongs. In any case, it’s high time our elected representatives stopped congregating in a building constructed by Edward Lutyens, the same fellow after whom that infamous hub of anti-nationals, ‘Lutyens Delhi’, is named.
