REALITY OF GANDHI

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 Gandhi was also found out that he promoted casteism and the height of his quarrels with the untouchables of India (the Dalits), who are the lowest ranking members of the caste system came to a head with Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar in the early 1930s. As talks for the Indian independence grew, the Roundtable talks were organized to organize a post-colonial India with its diverse ethnicities. It was from these Round Table talks that Gandhi opposed Ambedkar who wanted to secure the rights and representation of Dalits in the independent India. Ambedkar once recalled that it was through this experience that Gandhi “showed him his real fangs.” When Gandhi realized that the British government was ready to grant Ambedkar’s demands, Gandhi went on to fast against the independence and inclusivity of the Dalits, which forced Ambedkar to rescind his demands. Gandhi’s fasting caused so much outrage that the Hindus were geared to use violence against the Dalits in the event that Gandhi was harmed. This forced Ambedkar to meet Gandhi and with that meeting, the only chance to uplift the Dalits out of the doldrums of the caste-system was lost. Gandhi fasted to uphold the Hindu hegemony over other minorities of India, which made Ambedkar wonder why he never once fasted to remove the untouchability of the Dalits. 

 These are the truths that protesters around the world have been campaigning to have the statues of Gandhi taken down, because he is not a symbol of humanity, but rather a symbol of racial and caste hatred and sexual exploitation. When Narendra Modi was elected in 2014, the Bharata Janata Party (BJP) has championed and gifted the statues of Gandhi all over the world. Every year countries unveil the statues of Gandhi as a symbol of friendship with India and this Gandhiplomacy has been used by the BJP to foster international relations.

As these efforts to plant the statues of Gandhi were amplified, with the dissemination of new information regarding him, resistance grew to have the statues taken down. In the UK, US, Canada, Malawi, South Africa, Kenya and Ghana, calls were made to have the statue of Gandhi taken down. In Malawi, the statue was not erected, in Ghana the statue was taken down, in the US, in Georgia it was stopped before being erected and was entirely taken down at the University of Toledo and now at Davis California, it has been violently taken down. In India, last year, a statue of Gandhi was also smashed to pieces.