GANDHI’S RACIST LEGACY FUELS GLOBAL CONTROVERSY-THE DAVIS St
On 03, Feb 2021
We do not condone the taking down of Gandhi’s statue either by violence or vandalism. We condemn the Hindu Mahasaba’s violent shooting of Gandhi in India and the spilling of fake blood to celebrate the assassination of Gandhi. The Organization for Minorities of India (OFMI) further deplores and condemns the vandalism of the Gandhi statue in Davis, but will oppose any attempt to re-install the racist and pervert statue of Gandhi at Davis.
The Mahasaba reenacts the murder of Gandhi
Smashed statue of Gandhi in Hazariba, India
On Sunday, 31st January, 2021, protests ensued in Davis Central Park, where the statue of Gandhi was severed from its plinth. Members of the Indian Association of Sacramento and the Hindu American Foundation were part of the protests in Davis and OFMI was not officially involved in any counter-protests on this day.
The HAF and IAS are Hindu Nationalist groups who share common ideologies with violent extremist right-wing groups called the Hindu Mahasabha. The Hindu Mahasabha has committed many atrocities against the minorities of India and they perform an annual re-enactment of Gandhi’s murder, by shooting an imaginary Gandhi emblazoned on a banner. Amidst celebrations of the act, the members of the Mahasabha shout slogans of victory as fake blood pours underneath the body of Gandhi.
This collective of Hindu nationalist groups is called the Sangh Parivar and the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in a report, has pointed out that their goal is to whitewash minority crimes in India, by using the mythological history of Gandhi.
The IAS has direct ties to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the paramilitary wing of the Bharata Janata Party through the overseas group which is known as the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS). The HSS is the foreign arm of the RSS and IAS is listed on the HSS’s website as a joint operation with Ekal Vidyalaya (an educational project linked to Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the religious wing of RSS). IAS and HSS have jointly hosted events together where they have hosted speakers of the Overseas Friends of Bharatiya Janata Party (OFBJP), who are the international wing of the BJP was recently investigated for interference in American elections.
Recently, the former mayor of Davis, Robb Davis regretted from having accepted the statue from Sangh Parivar groups. Mayor Davis who was involved in the process of erecting the statue of Gandhi in Davis, states that he was deceived on who was gifting the statue to the city. In the beginning, Davis was informed that the statue was being gifted to the city by the Indo-American community in Davis. The former mayor was told that the funding of the statue would be met by sponsors in the US and it was only after a few months that he discovered that the Indian government was the sole sponsor. Groups like the IAS and HAF were used as conduits by the government of India to install the statue of Gandhi in Davis.