Durban - LOCAL Gandhi advocacy groups have once again opposed suggestions that the Indian icon was racist. This comes after a Gandhi statue was removed a few days ago from the University of Ghana which is situated in Accra.
In 2016, a short while after the statue was unveiled by former Indian president Pranab Mukherjee, lecturers and students at the university started an online petition against the monument.
They held the view that Gandhi was racist and demanded the statue be removed. It is a view that is also shared by some in South Africa, including Phumlani Mfeka and Zweli Sangweni of the Mazibuye African Forum, a South African human rights group.
This week the pair faced charges of hate speech in the Equality Court after the SA Human Rights Commission and the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation objected to their comments in 2013 that Indians and Gandhi were racist.
That matter was heard this week, but was adjourned to April, for a ruling.
David Gengan, chairman of the Pietermaritzburg Gandhi Memorial Committee, said it was “unfair” to label Gandhi a racist.
“I think the lecturers, students and others are being short-sighted in judging the Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who came to this country as a 23-year-old lawyer.
“He left here after 21 years as a Mahatma (a holy or revered person) because his whole philosophy of life had changed,” said Gengan.
A statue of Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi in an Accra university in Ghana was removed after lecturers and student activists objected to it. AP
Gandhi, the Indian activist, was best known for championing the principles of satyagraha (non-violence) in opposing British colonial rule.
Gengan said it was true that Gandhi made some disparaging comments about black Africans, but it was at a time when he had arrived in the country as a young lawyer.
“He knew nothing about what was happening in the country at the time and used terminology that was common.
“But he learnt his lessons after 21 years in the country.
“He learnt about human rights and equality,” Gengan said.
He said Gandhi apologised for utterances made earlier in his life when he was still learning.
“If one looks at campaigns he launched against the ‘untouchables’ when he returned to India in 1915, then you cannot call him racist.
“He espoused the principles of Satyagraha and truth.
“People are taking his utterances out of context.
“You need to judge the man over the course of his life,” said Gengan.
Ela Gandhi, granddaughter of Gandhi and head of the Gandhi Development Trust, said she was saddened by the developments in Ghana.
“I think that is a judgemental statement about a person based on one or two statements without giving any credence to statements made which negate the racist slur that has been attached.
“It is particularly disturbing because Gandhiji fought all his life against
the compartmentalisation of people and the labeling of individuals,” said Gandhi.
She acknowledged protesters’ point of view regarding the importance of having a personal role model to whom the people of Ghana could directly relate to, and whose statues were not erected on the campus.
“Gandhiji himself was very much conscious of people’s need to relate to their own before they can relate to others. This is the reason he did not take up the issues that confronted African people in South Africa, for instance.
“He supported their struggle and their leaders but did not usurp their right by taking up their issues himself. He did the same with Chinese and coloured leaders,” Gandhi said.
Professor Ashwin Desai, who co-authored the book The South
African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire with Professor Goolam Vahed, which drew attention to Gandhi’s politics, said there was worldwide debate about Gandhi’s legacy in South Africa.
According to Desai, it was clear from many of Gandhi’s speeches that he tried to distinguish Indians from Africans.
“Gandhi’s argument was that the Indians in South Africa could use India as a negotiating weapon to mitigate the racist excesses they faced here, and by linking up with Africans, it would dilute their struggle.”
He said Gandhi saw Queen Victoria’s proclamation of 1858 (that declared Indians were British subjects and they should be treated equitably anywhere in the world) as a tactical weapon.
“He tried to use that as a way to advance the cause of Indians.
“And in that quest, he did make prejudicial references to African people.
“He seemed to be either oblivious or ignored the particular peculiar forms of oppression that African people faced, especially around the dispossession of land and turning Africans into units of labour on farms and mines.
“There is evidence of that,” said Desai.