Acting Indian High Commissioner to Ghana Pradeep Kumar Gupta says he is working with University of Ghana authorities to resolve a controversy about a statue of Mahatma Gandi on the university’s campus.
A group of students and academics are calling for the removal of the statue from their campus, saying the leader of India’s independence movement was racist towards black people.
The statue was erected at the University of Ghana in mid-June during a visit to the country by India’s President Pranab Mukherjee.
Speaking to Joy News’ Maxwell Kudekor on the sidelines of the commissioning of the Dr Agarwal’s Eye Hospital in Accra, Mr Gupta said the concerns represent the right of Ghanaians to express their views.
“It happens everywhere. In this democracy, there is freedom of expression and speech so anybody can express their feeling about Gandhi. The only thing is to resolve it amicably which we will do,” the Indian representative said.
Gandhi spent 21 years (1893-1914) in South Africa and fought against the indiscrimination of Indians living in the country.
In an online petition, professors at the university cited a series of Gandhi’s own writings during his time in South Africa to illustrate his “racist identity”.
They quoted several references in which he depicted Indians as being at a higher level than black Africans, and used the racist pejorative “kaffirs” to describe them.
One of Gandhi’s writings cited in the petition reads: “Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness.”
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