Admin | On 13, Dec 2020

Racist Gandhi’s statue defaced once again in Washington DC, this time in support for farmers in India.

Washington DC: December 11, 2020 The statue of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has been defaced again for the second time in 5 months by protesters in Washington DC USA. The protesters who are supporting the farmers of India against the farm bills, took their protests to the Memorial Plaza in Washington where the Indian embassy is situated. At the front of this embassy, there is a statue of Gandhi which was caught in the crossfires, while the protesters were chanting slogans against the Indian government.

                   (Gandhi statue was defaced in Washington, DC in June 2020.)

(Angry protesters deface Gandhi statue at the memorial plaza in Washington, DC, in support of India’s farmers )

In the wake of the protests which targeted the Indian embassy, the Indian embassy released an official statement which branded the protesters as “hooligans”:

“The Embassy strongly condemns this mischievous act by hooligans masquerading as protesters against the universally respected icon of peace and justice”.

The statues of Gandhi have recently been a source of contention all over the world in countries such as South Africa, the United States of America, Ghana, Malawi, Canada, United Kingdom and the Netherlands. In Ghana, the statue of Gandhi was uprooted while in Malawi the court granted an injunction to stop the installation of the statue citing his “racist” past in South Africa.

                                                      Gandhi statue removed in Ghana

                                                  People protesting Gandhi statue in Malawi

The global attacks against the Gandhi statues particularly in the US, UK and the Netherlands were amplified after the murder of George Floyd. The protests led by the Black Lives Matter Movement spawned debates around historical figures, who are celebrated but have tainted pasts with links to racism and slavery.

Gandhi was targeted because of his racism, sexual abuse and casteism which was a side to him that was suppressed by the Indian government for decades. In so doing, Gandhi’s celebrity status sky-rocketed for decades to become one of the leading global saints who supposedly stood for humanity. However, more and more citizens of the world who have researched about the real Gandhi have discovered that the world revered saint was the father of apartheid while he lived in South Africa. Year after year, the legacy of Gandhi is being dismantled and the world is realizing that the so-called messiah of peace was actually a fraud.

Since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came into power in 2014, the statue of Gandhi has been gifted to tens of countries as part of their foreign policy to mask its atrocities within the interior of India. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) which is the paramilitary wing of the BJP and as the statues of Gandhi were handed out to countries as symbols of peace, more atrocities were committed against the minorities of India. The RSS is a Nazi-influenced grouping which advances the Hindutva ideology which is hell-bent on eradicating religious diversity in India. The statues of Gandhi who was a racist and sexual predator who raped his own teenage nieces comes as a condition for enhanced diplomatic ties with India. In Africa, India has offered African countries the statues of Gandhi in exchange for food aid, development loans, conference centers and scholarships from the BJP government.

The BJP which has recently passed 3 farm bills have been met with protests within India and many countries of the world. The farmers in India, particularly from the state of Punjab and Haryana, have trekked and camped in the outskirts of New Delhi. The protesters have been met with state violence which used tear gas and water cannons to stop them proceeding to New Delhi and were thus stopped at the gates of New Delhi.

 

(Peaceful India farmers protesters being subjected to water cannons)

Balbir Singh Rajewal the president of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Indian Farmers’ Union) has talked stated that “the government must accept their demands if they want them to stop their protests.”

In solidarity with the farmer’s plights, diaspora Indians around Greater Washington DC area, Maryland and Virginia, along with many from other states like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio and North Carolina organized a car rally and in a procession they all drove to Washington to the Indian Embassy.

As they protested, the statue of Gandhi was vandalized with posters, flags and an image of Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister with a rope around his neck was hung on the statue. The Indian Embassy has lodged a complaint against the defacement of Gandhi with the US Enforcement Agencies to intimidate the protesters or to investigate those responsible for this action.

One of the organizers of the protests in Washington facing a flurry of accusations from the BJP-controlled media that the protests were hijacked by separatists. When he was asked why the statue of Gandhi was hijacked he stated:

“All over the country here in America, confederate statues were vandalized and now they have been taken down. The people rose and the people said something that we discredit this kind of proportion of previous figures who were rapists, slave owners or people who were complacent to slavery and rapists…and Gandhi was…You look at his writings and reports in South Africa when he lived there, he actually advocated colonial administration to treat Africans less than…there are numerous allegations upon him that have been proven of him being a rapist, of him being less than a decent human-being and my question is, Gandhi statues have been taken down all over the world, why not this one?”

                           (Vandalized Gandhi statue in London)

Gandhi has been projected as the heart of the Indian State in many countries and the RSS believes that as an organization, they are the true heir to Gandhi’s legacy. This belief stems from the fact that Gandhi was a staunch Hindu and his thoughts on Hinduism, cow protection and economy are facts which are close to the operations of the Sangh.

                                                (Vandalized Gandhi statue in Amsterdam)

It is thus no wonder to see that the current farmer protests targeted the statue of Gandhi in
Washington, for he projects the power of the BJP and RSS who have instituted the farm bills.

Arvin Valmuchi, a director of Organization for Minorities of India supported the protests against the BJP-led government which has passed farm bills which will negatively impact the farmers in India.

“Gandhi is a symbol that is used for the BJP to clean their image on the world front. What was wrong with Gandhi before is what is wrong with BJP today. The farmer protests are to do with a fascist government which has only advanced policies which are influenced by the Hindutva ideology at the expense of Christians, Sikhs, Muslims and many other minorities in India. Striking Gandhi, a proven racist, rapist and casteist is striking at the heart of the BJP and the RSS who are behind the farm bills which are a threat to millions of farmers in India.”

                   In June 2020, suppressed minorities of India protested at the Gandhi statue in the USA