Skilled hands, latest tech to make Gandhi statue

Skilled craftsmanship and state-of-the-art technology are being used in making the 27-foot bronze statue of Mahatma Gandhi to be installed between Vidhana Soudha and Vikasa Soudha on October 2, the birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation.

Work on the statue, including the clay mould, basic inner structure and the 13-foot pedestal — which will be the world’s biggest statue of Gandhi in a meditative posture — is getting ready at the studios of Ram Sutar Art Creation Pvt Ltd at Noida.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah laid the foundation stone for the statue in Bangalore on Friday.

Anil Sutar, son of the master sculptor Ram V Sutar, told Deccan Herald that as many as 70 skilled craftsmen had been working on the statue.

The statue, being taken up at a cost of Rs 11 crore, will require 19 tonnes of bronze and seven tonnes of stainless steel, he said. The 89-year-old Ram Sutar is personally monitoring the progress of the statue, Anil said.

Ram Sutar is internationally recognised and known for several sculptures, including the 45-foot Chambal monument at the Gandhi Sagar Dam in Madhya Pradesh.

The Bangalore sculpture is an enlarged version of the 16-foot statue of Mahatma Gandhi in front of Parliament.

“We used 3-D imaging and computer graphics to get even the minor details of the statue right, including the muscle structure and the facial features. The statue was first moulded in thermocol,” Anil said.

“Twenty feet of the statue is now ready and the entire structure will be completed soon.”
Transporting the statue from Noida to Bangalore is, however, a challenge.

The statue is being put together in such a way that there are cut frames inside the structure that can be dismantled.

“The inner joints can be removed so that the statue is dismantled into five to seven parts. These parts will be transported separately in trailers. Once all the parts reach Bangalore, they can be put together in 10-15 days”, Anil added.

D H Shankaramurthy, chairman of the Legislative Council, said a committee headed by him had taken the decision to instal the statue.

The statue was earlier planned to be of 12-foot height. Since the two secretariat buildings are 66-foot tall, the chief architect of the Public Works Department (PWD) suggested installing a 27-foot statue on a 13-foot pedestal, Shankaramurthy said.

The Legislature amended the Karnataka Government Parks (Preservation) Act in 2013 so that the project could be taken up within the Vidhana Soudha campus, he pointed out.