Opposition to move to erect statue of Prem Nazir

PREM NAZIR

Kerala Muslim Jamaat Council President P.M.S. Attakoya Thangal and Secretary A. Pookunju have called upon the community to come together and oppose the move to erect a statue of Prem Nazir, the Evergreen Hero of Malayalam cinema.

According to them, Islam does not permit the erection of statues.

The Kerala government had recently sanctioned Rs 1 million each for erection of statues of Sathyan and Prem Nazir, stars of early Malayalam cinema.

The view that Islam does not permit erection of statues does not appear to have universal approval. 

The picture above shows bronze statues of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's Father of the Nation, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, founder of the Aligarh Movement, and Mohammed Iqbal, Urdu poet who wrote the lines Sare jehan se acchha Hindostan Hamara, which were on display at a science and technology exhibition held in Islamabad in 2007.

Two years ago the Pakistan government announced plans to erect a statue of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto at a cost of $11 million.
                                                                                                                                                                                     The picture below is that of a statue of Bangabandhu Shekh Mujibur Rahman, Bangaldesh's Father of the Nation, which stands outside a government college in that country which bears his name.

Visitors flying into Jakarta, capital of Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, are greeted by a sculpture (see picture below) with statues of Ahmed Sukarno and Mohammed Hatta, who were the country's first President and Vice-president respectively. The Jakarta airport is named after them.

The Turkish city of Istanbul boasts of a statue of Mustafa Kamal Pasha, who led the reform movement in the country after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. (Picture below)

Until recently a statue of former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who, along with Jawaharlal Nehru and Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia, had founded the Non-Alignment Movement, stood in the Libyan town of Benghazi. It was erected by the Libyan regime to commemorate Nasser's visit to the city. For reasons which are not clear, after the fall of the Gaddafi regime, the statue was pulled down. The picture below shows the demolition operation in progress.

In India, one of the many statues adorning the precincts of Parliament is that of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, a great scholar who had served as Congress President before Independence and as Free India's first Education Minister. (Picture below)

I do not think all this will persuade the Jamaat Council leadership to reconsider its stand on the planned Prem Nazir statue. And I do not expect the Kerala government, which shied away from presenting the Raja Ravi Varma Award to the late M.F.Hussain because of the opposition from Hindu fringe elements, will go against the wishes of a body like the Jamaat Council.