Gandhi statue faces backlash from student activists

Daily Mail and MailOnline 19 October 2019

Mahatma Gandhi is revered across the world for his non-violent campaign for Indian independence and was nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize. But plans to unveil a statue in his memory in Manchester have sparked a backlash from a student leader who claims he was a “virulently anti-black racist”, write Richard Marsden for The Daily Mail and Sophie Tanno for MailOnline.

The nine-foot statue has been donated to the city by the Shrimad Rajchandra Mission Dharampur, a spiritual mission based in Gandhi’s ancestral homeland of Gujarat, following the Manchester Arena bombing which killed 22 people in 2017. It is due to be unveiled outside Manchester Cathedral next month, to “spread a message of peace, love and harmony”.

But Sara Khan, liberation and access officer at the University of Manchester students' union, is behind a campaign to prevent the statue being erected. In a letter published online, campaigners “demand that Manchester City Council reconsider this decision on the basis of Gandhi's well-documented anti-black racism and complicity in the British Empire’s actions in Africa”. The letter says Gandhi “referred to Africans as ‘savages’, ‘half-heathen Natives’, ‘uncivilised’, ‘dirty’ and ‘like animals’, to reference only a few of his vile comments.”
Full report on Mail Online site

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