Another Gandhi Statue has Fallen

 Another statue of Gandhi has fallen! This time the statue of Gandhi has been forcibly taken down in the City of Davis in California. It was 2nd October 2016, when the statue of Mohandas Gandhi was installed in Davis, a tiny city in California. The Davis City Council approved the installation of the $22,000 bronze statue which was funded by the Indian-American community.  On the day, protesters interrupted the speeches of Davis Mayor Robb Davis, state Senator Lois Wolk and Venkatesan Ashok, India’s Consul General in San Francisco, calling out against the imposition of Gandhi in Davis Central Park. Since the day of this inauguration, protesters have called onto the Davis City Council to take down the statue of Gandhi with protests and petitions. On the 28th of January, pictures of Gandhi’s statue in Davis Central Park, began circulating showing a decapitated head severed from the ankles and the head cut in half.

 

 History as a discipline is not a recitation or regurgitation of facts but it is a complex set of studies about the past with arguments being made, challenged and re-evaluated to understand certain historical truths of events. Such has been the case with Gandhi who after his death was carefully modelled by the Indian government as a global humanist, who served all human-kind regardless of race, class or creed. When Gandhi died in 1948, his celebrity status rose that a film made about him in 1982, starring Ben Kingsley won multiple prestigious awards. The film depicted Gandhi as a righteous and selfless individual who did not fight for the rights of Indians alone, but all humanity in the world. This year, Mohan Bhagwat the chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) declared Gandhi as a true Hindu patriot. The RSS as the paramilitary wing of the Bharata Janata Party has committed many atrocities against the non-Hindus of India. RSS is able to appropriate the image of Gandhi because they all are ardent Hindus (including Gandhi) who want to uphold the Brahmin hegemony which has been used to oppress the minorities of India with violence and atrocities. However, it is only in recent times, in the early 2000s, that information was largely uncovered that Gandhi was not the person that he was portrayed to be in the media literary pieces. The Indian government in 1962 released what is called the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi which collated all Gandhi’s writings in a 100 volume series spanning from his life in South Africa and India. In the early 2000s, the CWMG was digitized and was made free for all researchers to research more angles on the Gandhi project. It was from these documents that researchers and historians found out that the “Hollywood Gandhi” was an image that was carefully concocted to raise his celebrity status. The real truth about him was deliberately suppressed to create a misleading image about the man. In 2003, in South Africa, a statue of Gandhi was erected in Central Johannesburg near where Gandhi’s law firm offices stood. This place in Johannesburg is today called the Gandhi Square and the days preceding the installation of the statue, ignited a contentious debate on who Gandhi was. Citizens wrote letters to newspapers and one writer claimed that “Gandhi had no love for Africans”. To [him], Africans were no better than the ‘Untouchables’ of India. Another letter claimed Gandhi “hated black people and ignored their suffering at the hands of colonial masters while championing the cause of Indians.” Nhlanhla Hlongwane in another newspaper wrote that Gandhi was an “inveterate racist who managed to deceive the black leaders whose trust he won.” In 2004, a book by G.B Singh “Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity” was released and detailed information derived from Gandhi’s own writings showcase that Gandhi’s Satyagraha was deep-rooted in racism. In fact, Gandhi was exposed as a virulent racist who campaigned to have Africans separated from Indians in public spaces. Up to his death, when Gandhi became the so-called “Mahatma” in India, never did he recant nor acknowledge the 20 years of his racism while in South Africa. More information about his sexual conduct in his ashrams has also been recently revealed. When Gandhi died, most of the salacious details of his sex life were destroyed, but information that was uncovered revealed that Gandhi was a sexual predator. At his ashrams, he banned sex for all occupants and he encouraged married couples to refrain from intimate relations. However, in 1906, Gandhi vowed to a celibate life even though he was married, but when he went to India and created these ashrams, Gandhi begun using innocent young girls for his sex experiments. He tested his celibacy by sleeping naked with young girls, including his own niece and the wife of his nephew. He would have young girls massage him while he was naked that the conduct of his sexual behavior once influenced his ardent follower to quit his ashrams. The most damaging details of these sordid affairs were destroyed to protect the image of Gandhi and his legacy as the father of India.

The pressure to have the statues taken down in other countries is growing as the citizens of the world realize that Gandhi is not a saint as the world has portrayed him to be. Arvin Valmuci a director at Organization for Minorities of India weighed in on the events at Davis:

“If we remember well, confederate statues during the BLM protests were forcibly removed in the US and in the UK, statues of individuals who dabbled in slavery were also toppled. This is a result of people being fed-up with authorities who do not listen to the concerns of people regarding the histories of certain historical figures. This has been the case with the statues of Gandhi all over the world. Many people in multicultural societies have complained of the impact that Gandhi has on the minorities that see him as a racist, casteist or women that see him as a sexual predator. They have appealed to authorities on countless occasions and they usually dismiss their claims as being frivolous. It only takes one disgruntled individual who can chop of the statue of Gandhi as they have done in Davis to settle the matter. If only the authorities could take their time to listen to what evidence people have on Gandhi, maybe these issues could be resolved amicably in a much civilized manner. Otherwise scenes like what happened in Davis can be replicated elsewhere as a solution to end what is being perceived as an injustice to some.” It is evident that Gandhi’s legacy is certainly not what it used to be in the 1980s and 1990s. Historical truths are ever evolving and the 21st century has showcased that Gandhi will not be accepted as the humanitarian that he was touted to be in the 20th century. Gandhi is definitely on the decline and it would be in India’s interest to reboot its foreign policy of gifting Gandhi to the world. The more they force Gandhi onto the world, the more the citizens of the world will continue to reject his statues through legal and vigilante means.