It began at Worli in South Mumbai. Commuters passing the junction near the famous Haji Ali dargah noticed a statue of a man with an office bag slung from his shoulder and a folded umbrella in his hand. In case they missed the point of the 25-foot figure, a vertical sign on a nearby streetlight spelt out the word Nagrik – citizen. This is evidently the common man.

Crossing the sculpture from the left reveals the reason of it all: a lion made of gears adorns the centre of its office bag. The figure has been erected as part of the grand week-long Make in India event to be held in Mumbai. Starting February 13, Mumbai will host industrialists and entrepreneurs from 56 countries to galvanise support for the Modi government’s “Make in India” project, which aims to increase manufacturing. The hope is to make India an international manufacturing hub like China.

Back when the government had first released the Make in India logo created by the advertising company Wieden and Kenneth, critics had pointed out that the lion in the design was closer in resemblance to an African lion, not the squat Asian one. The criticism didn’t ruffle the government as various departments made their own variations, filling each with stock images symbolising themselves.

A year on, Mumbai are seeing the figures in three dimensions. Apart from the Nagrik statue, six lion sculptures representing the Make in India logo have been littered along the route between the airport and the event venues – Chowpatty beach and Bandra-Kurla Complex.

The Maharashtra government had to move the Supreme Court to get permission to hold the event at Chowpatty beach. The Bombay High Court had, in 2005, issued guidelines outlining how the beach, a public space, ought to be used. Political events were not on that list. The state successfully argued in the Supreme Court that Make in India is of national and not political interest.

As it happens, Uddhav Thackeray, the president of the Shiv Sena, which is a coalition partner in the Maharashtra government, has not been invited to the Make in India event, news reports said.

Public art and the city

But what was the idea behind the Nagrik statue? And how does it relate to Make in India?

“Are his sullen eyes and blank expression a reflection of the ennui with which many citizens approach another day of crowded train compartments and mundane tasks?” asked The Daily Pao, a Mumbai-based culture and food website. “And did the state’s representative for office goers have to be a man? (If only that were a belan, then we would have been pleased that ‘Nagrik’ is a multi-tasker who helps his significant other out in the kitchen.)”

Mumbai, as the website reminds us, does not have a particularly pleasant relationship with public art.

A public art drive by industrialist Harsh Goenka’s RPG Group in 2015 bestowed on the city the hideous baby head that lurks in a garden at Nariman Point.

The Indian Merchants Chamber and students of the JJ School of Arts are responsible for the forlorn multi-coloured fibreglass bovines that have made a patch of grass outside the Churchgate station their permanent home since 2007. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation had commissioned for a traffic island opposite its office a baffling sculpture that serves as memorial to martyrs of the 1857 War of Independence.

It is not as if the people of Mumbai are forgiving. After several residents complained about an installation called Child Gives Birth to Mother in Mahim, the municipal corporation set up an enquiry to see if the sculptor had secured the correct permissions for it.