The $430 million Statue of Unity, built on an island in Narmada river, was inaugurated by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday in the western Indian state of Gujarat, home to both Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Modi. 
 
Patel was deputy to Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, also the great-grandfather of current Congress party president, Rahul Gandhi. 
 
Speaking at the inauguration, Modi, who had commissioned the statue in 2010 when he was Gujarat state’s chief minister, said, “events like today are very important in a country’s history and such events are difficult to erase. It is an historic and inspiring occasion for all Indians.” 
 
Around 3,500 workers and 250 engineers worked to build the gigantic statue made of concrete, steel and bronze panels, located on the island Sadhu Bet, which is around 200 kilometers from Gujarat’s capital city, Ahmedabad. 
 
There will be a viewing gallery some 153 meters up, near the chest of the towering statue, which, critics say, is part of a larger right-wing project of revising India’s history to suit the Hindu nationalist agenda. 
 
Another controversial statue, that of 17th century Maratha warrior, Shivaji Bhosle, is currently being built in Mumbai. 
 
Both the statues dwarf the Statue of Liberty in height and together cost almost $1 billion. 
 
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, also known as the “Iron Man of India”, persuaded feuding states to merge and become part of the Indian union after independence from the British rule in 1947. 
 
Patel worked alongside Nehru to build the nation after the Indian subcontinent was divided into India and Pakistan, one of the bloodiest events in South Asia that resulted in nearly a million deaths and displaced 15 million people. 
 
The costly statue projects have also been criticized as being unnecessary in a nation where one-third of the 1.2 billion people live in abject poverty. 
 
Local organizations claim as many as 75,000 tribal people were displaced from their lands by the Statue of Unity project, which has been financed by government and public donations. 
 
Posters of Modi with Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani were torn down or defaced over the weekend, AFP news agency reported. 
 
Activists said about a dozen of their leaders were detained ahead of the opening of the statue. 
 
Anand Mazgaonkar, a community leader in Narmada district, told AFP that police in plain clothes took away 12 people late on Tuesday to the local police headquarters. 
 
Authorities denied the allegations but admitted that they took no chances. 
 
“More than 5,000 police personnel were deployed at various points in the 10-kilometer radius of the statue site,” Narmada police inspector general Abhay Chudasama told AFP. 
 
Analysts say the government should have its priorities cut out. 
 
“A country struggling to create jobs amid a sluggish economy could have surely avoided this wasteful expenditure. India needs gigantic growth, not gigantic statues,” said Sharma. 
 
For more on this story, go to Al Jazeera.