Have Maharashtra’s chief minister and India’s prime minister ever visited a cancer treatment centre, like the Tata Memorial hospital in central Mumbai? If they have, they would carry with them lifelong reminders of children bravely smiling through pain, misery-struck parents, their families ruined by costs of cancer treatment and now living in the streets. And the hard-working PM and CM would never think of wasting over Rs 4,000 crores of public funds in building a statue – when five per cent of that money can save thousands of lives.

The proposed Shivaji statue off the Mumbai coast is a deluded idea that actually insults both the Maratha warrior-king and ‘Magnetic Maharashtra’ – label for investment-seeking events to mark ‘Shivaji Jayanti’ of February 19. Besides the childish attempt to outdo New York’s ‘Statue of Liberty’ (which was a gift), the Shivaji statue project reflects India’s worst cultural disease: the millennia-old addiction to personality worship, of paying hollow lip service to great lives, but failing to practice the values they inspired.

Elected leaders enjoying public-funded privileges for long seem to have wandered out of touch with ground realities. How else can anyone even think of misusing thousands of crores of public money? Shivaji Bhonsle is remembered nearly four centuries later because he cared for the welfare of his people.

Chhatrapati Shivaji and his mother Jijabai would never have permitted a grandiose statue in his name, when the massive public funds for it could be more wisely used for welfare of many, in many ways.

Mumbai’s beautiful new international airport – ranked one of best three airports in the world – is named after Shivaji. With the iconic Victoria Terminus Railway station renamed as Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai has sufficiently honored him. Personality-worship has created an impression that Maharashtra without Shivaji is Maharashtra without history.

In fact, to further honor its warrior-king, Maharashtra should urge the Election Commission to de-recognize as ‘political party’ some goonda ‘leaders’ and violent gangs of bullies misusing his name, insulting both the courage of Shivaji and the heart of democracy.

Likewise, genuine saints never asked us to hoist thousands of statues, label hundreds of roads in their name. Benefit from practicing their teachings. Instead, ignorance and laziness lead to merely worshipping their images. Easier to pay lip service as respect, than the true respect of much harder work in living honest lives and serving others.

India is a very ancient civilization but a young democracy; for modern India to flourish, reclaim its Golden Age, needs getting rid of weaknesses that have accompanied and poisoned India’s culture across time.

Personality worship, the sickening sycophancy infecting public life and the disgusting ‘VIP’ culture are all part of the same mania: blind idolization of individuals, whether it involves movie stars, political leaders, great kings of history, true saints and gods.

India is not alone in personality worship, but we have taken it to gross, shameful levels. “God save the Queen” is England’s national anthem – not “God save England” – but Queen Elizabeth cannot get away with traffic violations, or flaunt ridiculous hundred-vehicle motorcades that choke peak-hour traffic, harass citizens having to rush to the hospital, office, catch a train or plane.

The President of the USA might be the most famous man in the world, but he can dine in a Washington DC restaurant with his family without people rushing to him for “selfies” and invading his privacy – or without the Secret Service clearing that restaurant or road of people, as can happen in India.

A sense of dignity and self-respect goes missing in the national trait of mobbing some so-called ‘celebrity’. What do we gain by gawking at someone?

Over 2,000 years ago, the country paid a heavy price for personality-worship. India’s Fully Enlightened Super-Scientist called Gautama the Buddha most compassionately shared the practical path to true happiness and freedom from all suffering. He enabled millions to directly experience the impermanence of this mind-matter phenomenon called ‘I’, the Vipassana process to clean the mind and reduce the ego – the cause of self-inflicted suffering.

Yet soon after the Buddha’s passing away, ignorant people quarreled over his physical remains; and far worse, personality-worship reduced and corrupted his practical teachings to another sect called ‘Buddhism’. A weakened India that fell to invaders for centuries is gradually re-awakening, by benefiting again from its true heritage.

Remember lessons of history, to not again suffer tragedies of the past. This needs being grounded in reality, not succumbing to the disease of personality-worship. Keep away from cults and crooked ‘god men’, like ‘spiritual’ fraudsters charging fees and cheating the gullible.

Leaders have greater responsibility to be free from such delusions, to ensure good intentions become beneficial actions, not wasteful decisions. No point squandering public money in erecting ultra-lavish false symbols that actually dishonor great lives that show the path to serve fellow beings.

Or, visit children in a cancer hospital – to be reminded of necessary realities. The thousands of crores of taxpayers’ money for the Shivaji statue can be a much more beneficial memorial: use it as a corpus fund to help people who cannot afford cancer treatment. Thousands of lives and families can be saved. Let compassion and common sense prevail.

The writer is a senior, Mumbai-based journalist.