Maybe it’s because I live in L.A. and everyone here is working on the latest greatest movie/script/t.v. pilot but I have a great idea for a docu-travel-reality show.
Picture this: As South Asians have slowly immigrated over and made their mark on America, they have also brought along their iconographic image of Mahatma Gandhi. The bronzed image of a walking and robed Gandhi, stick in hand, has been popping up all across the U.S. recently with a statue in almost every major city. Each statue erected has a unique associated story, for the most part an active first generation Indian American community rallying for a statue in their adopted hometown.
1. Riverside, CA: I started thinking about this when I literally stumbled across a Gandhi statue in front of City Hall in downtown Riverside, CA. The statue is surrounded by quotes, and plaques with Desi names surrounding it. I learned later, the local Muslim community was in uproar about the statue getting put up. A compromise was eventually reach.
Among the concessions the city was willing to make were naming a street beside the local mosque after a Muslim leader, and considering a sister-city relationship with a Pakistani city. Currently, the city has a sister relationship with Hyderabad, India.[rediff]
2. San Francisco, CA: On the Embarcadero, the statue is located right behind the Ferry Building by the trash dumpsters.
The statue was given to the city in 1988 by the Gandhi Memorial International Foundation, “a controversial non-profit organization run by Yogesh K. Gandhi,” who Gandhi family members claim was a “scam artist” and the White House called “clearly disreputable” when he asked to visit. Then in the 1990’s Yogesh then was the subject of an investigation, and the US Dept of Justice charged him with tax evasion, mail and wire fraud and perjury. The Foundation continued for a few years but then ran into more legal troubles as they found out Yogesh still had his hands in things.[yelp]
3. NYC, NY: At the southwest corner of Union Square, the statue was added in 1986, to mark Union Square’s history of social activism.
4. Atlanta, GA: A match of non-violent leaders, the statue is at the MLK Jr. Historical Site.
“A statue of Mahatma Gandhi was unveiled at the Martin Luther King Jr. Historical Site in Atlanta on January 24, 1998. This historical event, taking place in the course of the 50th anniversary of India’s independence, was made possible by sustained and concerted efforts made by the National Federation of Indian-American Associations (NFIA), along with the enthusiastic support of the National Park Service of the U.S. …The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) donated the statue, which was sculpted by Mr. Ram Sutar of New Delhi.[indianembassy]
5. Skokie, IL: Once a Jewish community, the city is Abhi’s birthplace and home to a rich diversity of 80 languages spoken in the home. The 8-foot statue was dedicated on the 135th anniversary of his birth. [sepiamutiny]
6. Milwaukee, WI: On your way to Summerfest, you can now swing by the Milwaukee County Courthouse. The statue was placed in 2002, and is “…being donated by the Wisconsin Coalition of Asian Indian Organizations. The group is raising $50,000 to pay for and maintain the statue. County Board members recently accepted the donation of the statue… According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Asian Indian population in Milwaukee rose 49% over the last decade, to 2,313 from 1,551.”[rdn]
7. Houston, TX: In Hermann Park, the 6-foot statue was “…sculpted in India by renowned artist Ram Sutar, has been gifted to the citizens of greater Houston by the Indian government as a gesture of goodwill and friendship.”[sepiamutiny]
8. Washington D.C.: Located in Dupont Circle in front of the Indian Embassy, it took a Congressional authorization to establish this monument in 1997. Then President Clinton gave the dedication speech.
9. Cleveland, OH: The Indian Cultural Garden in Cleveland was unveiled in October 1, 2006 with an unveiling and dedication of the Mahatma Gandhi statue. Who was at the event? Special guest seen in the photo stream linked here was Dennis Kucinich and his much younger wife.
10. Liberty State Park, NJ: The local Federation for Indian Organizations has been campaigning to erect a statue in the park since 2008.
12.High Point University, North Carolina.
13. SOKA University, Mission Viejo, CA.
14. Cal State University, Fresno, CA.
16. International Peace Gardens. Salt Lake City, Utah.
18. UNF. Jacksonville, Florida.
19. Charlotte, North Carolina.
20. James Madison University, Virginia.
21. Lake Eola Park. Orlando, Florida.
National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, TN.
Mahatma Gandhi Community Center, Houston, TX.
H. Lee Dennison Building, Hauppauge Hamlet, Islip, NY.
Millsaps College, Jackson, MS.
26. Mahatma Gandhi Center, St. Louis, MO.
The Life Experience School, Sherborn, MA.
Honolulu Zoo, Honolulu, HI.
Gandhi, King, Ikeda Peace Exhibit, Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA.
City Park, Denver, CO.
I have counted fifteen — scratch that, THIRTY — statues scatter all across the U.S. and I am pretty sure there are plenty more that I have missed. I am fascinated by the communities that have raised the funds, the stories behind the sculptors, the photos of the inaugural events. For the most part, the statues have all been put up in the past fifteen years, a time where the first wave generation of immigrants have turned into elderly auntie and uncles that are of donor/giving back age, and this is how they chose to make their American mark. They chose to mark their American dream with a bronzed statue of Gandhi in their adopted hometown.
I find something poetic and bizarre about the whole thing. I don’t know much about Gandhi, but I do think the development of the iconography of Gandhi-the-person to Gandhi-the-bronzed-6-to-9-foot-statue somehow to me seems counter intuitive for what he believed in. This could also be because I was raised in a religion where idolatry was deeply discouraged, and the physical image of our prophet was never to be turned into an idol or icon, thus, not existing. Gandhi wasn’t a prophet, but he is revered. And here we are in 2009, with multiple Gandhis bronzed and larger than life. Maybe that’s why I find the propensity of these statues popping up in the U.S. right now as an identifying marker of hyphenated political collective identity for the South Asian American community so fascinating. It’s a part of our living history, undocumented and in the raw. Or freshly cast bronze.
What do you think, Mutiny/producers/investors? I’m sure there are other statues that you have probably heard about that I’ve likely missed (I’d appreciate links to them in the comments). It would be the ultimate road trip to hit up each of the cities the statues are in and converse with the community that initiated the effort. And I have the perfect South Asian American docu-travel-reality host for it.
why did the muslims object to gandhi’s statue?
Follow the links – I sourced one if not twice for every statue…
eh?
“find something poetic and bizarre about the whole thing. I don’t know much about Gandhi, but I do think the development of the iconography of Gandhi-the-person to Gandhi-the-bronzed-6-to-9-foot-statue somehow to me seems counter intuitive for what he believed in. This could also be because I was raised in a religion where idolatry was deeply discouraged, and the physical image of our prophet was never to be turned into an idol or icon, thus, not existing. Gandhi wasn’t a prophet, but he is revered. And here we are in 2009, with multiple Gandhis bronzed and larger than life. Maybe that’s why I find the propensity of these statues popping up in the U.S. right now as an identifying marker of hyphenated political collective identity for the South Asian American community so fascinating. It’s a part of our living history, undocumented and in the raw. Or freshly cast bronze.”
interesting, so do pakistanis and bangladeshis not erect any statues post-independence? how are older statues viewed? and are there any statues of jinnah or bangladeshi notables in these countries?
gandhi is also not just an indian icon anymore. he has resonance in the united states because of his influence – amongst other influences – on martin luther king jr. and other members of the civil rights movement.
And then
. WTF!! South Asian solidarity indeed.
i am more curious about iconography. to me these are vessels for our aspirations. going back several years, i had a (very flaxen haired) athlete’s pic cut out and scotchtaped over my desk. simple little affair, about 6″x4″ BW newspaper clipping. i used to look over his position, the expression on his face and fantasize about my afternoon workout – picturing in my mind’s eye how i would handle the hills, the drops, the wind. it was odd to me when a researcher made a snide remark about him not looking like me. meh! by the same token if a broad community endorses a gandhi image, i gauge it isnt looking to the man as a prophet but more as a symbol of what the society can be if peace and tolerance were embraced by humanity. i can see why muslim culture doesnt like a cult to develop around a person, but that’s a shortcoming in the religion/culture; a thinking person has the ability to know that humans are flawed – aspiring to the best in one’s idol doesnt keep him from rejecting the worst in the other.
the athlete i’d scotchtaped up was later suspended for doping. but he still showed excellent form in his pic. icons are an endorsement of traits we admire. the person is just the vessel.
Oh boy!
You ever go hiking, shake up some branches, and then find yourself asking “Hey! What’s the buzzing noise and why is it getting louder?”
check out lladro’s gandhi: http://lladro.blogspot.com/2008/09/lladro-01008417-mahatma-gandhi.html
I don’t know, I’ve never lived there. I’ve lived in Saudi Arabia, a muslim country, and statues of anyone would not be condoned. As an American, we have a lot of statues – Abe Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, etc – D.C. is full of them. Statue on every corner. It’s very American to have statues of past leaders, isn’t it? So I think this form of “desi fusion” is a very interesting Americanization setting down the roots while preserving the past kind of action.
“Gandhi is an icon to everyone” – totally – Which is why I found the ATL and Peace Abbey statues were interesting.
Taz, thanks for your reply. sorry for assuming you grew up in bangladesh and then moved to the u.s. at some point in your youth.
just to clarify, i don’t think gandhi is an icon to everyone, but to many people, many of them non-indian.
I did a google search and it turns out that there are statues of Jinnah, some in Pakistan. For example, during the Science and Technology Expo 2007 statues of Jinnah, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Allama Iqbal were put on display at the National Memorial Museum in Islamabad.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://pakistaniat.com/images/Jinnah-Iqbal-Sir-Syed-statues.jpg&imgrefurl=http://pakistaniat.com/2007/04/10/statues-jinnah-quaid-azam-allama-iqbal-sir-syed-ahmad-ahmed-khan-museum/comment-page-4/&usg=__2yxpT1CMKzXSmRx15w8WzUN9Pds=&h=318&w=460&sz=31&hl=en&start=4&um=1&tbnid=9KvvlHTiKWFHvM:&tbnh=88&tbnw=128&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djinnah%2Bstatue%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1
there’s also a statue of Jinnah at York University in Canada unveiled in 2007 to commemorate the creation of a scholarship that bears his name.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.yorku.ca/yfile/photos/20070202/Jinnah_group.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.yorku.ca/yfile/archive/index.asp%3FArticle%3D7839&usg=__Z3iRBhy7zq7mPWXy8zDd0tRnBRo=&h=301&w=450&sz=133&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=oOMtALovmi2s4M:&tbnh=85&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djinnah%2Bstatue%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1
so far, my favourite gandhi statute is the one in london’s tavistock square . the UK counterpart of the road trip would prob. turn up just as many statutes, if not more.
i am also partial to the one at marina beach in madras – mostly because gandhi “thatha” was a marker for how much more we had to walk
my mother has had her eye on this for a while. i have to admit, the detail on this one is very well done.
i find the lack of iconography in islam very interesting. although, having grown up in a house that might as well be a museum back in tamil nadu, i feel that there def. should be a stopping point sometimes 😉
thanks for the links, kabir.
“my mother has had her eye on this for a while. i have to admit, the detail on this one is very well done.”
have you seen the other indian/hindu/buddhist ones they’ve done? really superb workmanship in fine china.
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-photo/hecqs/16/1218754260/37.jpg/tpod.html
Statue of Gandhi I ran into in Rio. Its near Cinelandia.
Keep this up! Everyone post the location of your favorite statue. Perhaps a Google map listing all the sites?
Nice idea. What came to me was adding some life chunks of Gandhi in between each visit. Not his whole story, but bits and pieces. Like a scene from South Africa, that started it all. A scene from Dandi, a visit to London. his death. india after gandhi. a lil bit of irony – modern day politicians talking in front of his statue. It could even be a little like newsreels of yesteryear.
i have – the work is excellent. but somehow, i found them too colourful – i prefer statutes of hindu deities in metal. boring, i know…
There is a statue of Gandhi in Hawaii on Oahu…I pretty much ran into it on my way Waikiki beach
Brazil and Gandhi: here’s an interesting story about ‘son’s of Gandhi: Its about honoring Gandhi and Afro-Brazilian Heritage. Really cool story.
lego gandhi . 🙂
i’d love to see marilyn manson do a ‘your own personal gandhi’
i am so waiting for a vell aimed hatchet to dispatch me.
I like your Road Trip idea Taz. Having been born on Oct 2nd in Porbandar no less, I take a special interest in all things Gandhian. One year my mom and I took photos with the statue in Union Square on my birthday. I was pleasantly surprised to see all the birthday flowers on the statue.
I think a distinction should be made between Pakistanis objecting to Gandhi and muslims objecting to Gandhi. I have not heard of the latter unless they are Pakistani.
Also, I don’t know what the situation was pre Zia, but post Zia a deliberate effort has been made in Pakistan to disassociate Pakistani history from that of India. Also, a reading go Pakistani school history text books paints a picture of the ‘chalak hindu baniya’ (Gandhi being one of those) advocating/committing atrocities against Muslims. There were other aspects too. Little attention is paid to the amalgamated Indo-Islamic culture and Hindustani classical and such art forms suffered because they were seen steeped in HIndu culture though some of their biggest practitioners happened to be Muslim. The historical figures painted as heroes too changed, etc etc.
Gandhi probably was one of the bigger advocates of Hindu-Muslim unity at that time and went on multiple fasts for that, but this is not known many Pakistanis. Thus, protest by Pakistanis against Gandhi is not a surprise.
while not a statue, what gandhian road trip would be complete without a visit to his memorial/shrine in the pacific palisades (where his ashes are)– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Realization_Fellowship_Lake_Shrine#Gandhi_Shrine
So it occurs to me that this has potential to be the plot of another Munna Bhai film.
I did the Great Urban Race in San Francisco this past Saturday and we had to solve a symbol clue which then revealed we needed to find a statue with a “great soul” which of course lead us to the Gandhi statue on the Embarcadero.
When we were googling “great soul” I was surprised that there are many statues across the US, including Atlanta and Salt Lake City.
Maybe you could have a sister documentary for the road trip about staying in Patel Motels or something 😉
Or an iPhone app.
One more: http://www.madametussauds.com/NewYork/OurFigures/WorldLeaders/Gandhi/Default.aspx
Not really — a lot of Indians despise Gandhi.
I had a colleague who had grown up in the old city in Hyderabad. A few months we went out for a few drinks for his farewell, near Union Square. On the way back, the soon to be former colleague, needed to relieve himself. Much to the disgust (but not surprise) of the rest of us, he concluded that the statue was closer than the McDonald’s restroom on the other side of the road.
I never understood this. Why would any Indian despise Gandhi? For what reasons?
Granted, I can understand why some people might think of some of his ideas and “experiements” as kooky, and I can understand why people don’t like that he gets the credit for getting the Britraj of India when so many other people and factors were involved – people who did not get credit and who’s approach differed from Gandhi’s… but really – why would anyone despise the man? Over what exactly?
Why was he assasinated? Why do some people not like Clinton while others adore him?
Because there are people in India who did/do not agree with his world view. Since he was a powerful man and his world view affected the way India did things much more than most leaders, he’s had a profound impact on many things that happened – India’s freedom struggle and how freedom was attained, the negotiations between governments during partition, Gandhian philosophy,etc. Whether those were good for India or bad or something else, you will find as many opinions as people.
Plus, Gandhi was an idealistic man – he strove to live by very idealistic notions. Also, post partition, India has elevated him to some what of a super being. The direct consequence of this is if you do not like Gandhi, you dislike him with more intensity and also due to his idealism, you find ways more easily to diss him. Basically, the usual issues debates that every historical figure undergo3es – its just that the intensity is larger here.
I have read and heard from some people that they did not like Gandhi because they felt (in their mind) that he was more of a British appeaser than a freedom fighter. They didn’t like that he didn’t support the more militant freedom fighters, and when they were caught and executed, that he didn’t do more to help them or free them. It’s like a Malcom X vs MLK thing. Some of these freedom fighters were Sikh, so I have heard this from some Punjabis.
I find something poetic and bizarre about the whole thing. I don’t know much about Gandhi, but I do think the development of the iconography of Gandhi-the-person to Gandhi-the-bronzed-6-to-9-foot-statue somehow to me seems counter intuitive for what he believed in. This could also be because I was raised in a religion where idolatry was deeply discouraged, and the physical image of our prophet was never to be turned into an idol or icon, thus, not existing. Gandhi wasn’t a prophet, but he is revered. And here we are in 2009, with multiple Gandhis bronzed and larger than life. Maybe that’s why I find the propensity of these statues popping up in the U.S. right now as an identifying marker of hyphenated political collective identity for the South Asian American community so fascinating. It’s a part of our living history, undocumented and in the raw. Or freshly cast bronze.
Gandhi statues have been all over US for a long, ling time.
However, the most famous image in US has been Gandhi’s picture in Martin Luther King Jr’s office when he was alive.
US Senate has Gandhi’s statue too. US Senate is extremely selective in their collection of busts.
America and West has always been a statue culture, so is India, every nukkad (crossing) has one.
I have never been to Pakistan (once almost went and forced to cancel the trip 3 days before) so I do not know much about Jinnah’s statues. However, Jinnah as a picture is found at every walk of Pakistani life.
This protest is more outshoot of Zia’s legacy…………………..
A lot of Hindus think that Gandhi ceded “too much” to Muslims in his attempt to mediate both communities. Also, not that they despise him for it, but many people also look down upon Gandhi for certain of practises (treatment of his son, testing of his celibacy etc).
LOSERS!
Tavistock Square is where one of the London suicide-bombers murdered people on the bus in 2005. You might remember that photograph of the red double-decker bus which had been blown apart. It happened right next to the statue of Gandhi.
Eh, not a fan of Gandhi. All the best to people who like him.
I think Gandhi was a great man and fully deserves his statues to be put up to propagate his memory and his message, but equally, I feel that Gandhi iconography/ Hagiography has infiltrated the space that should rightly have been shared with other great leaders and visionaries of the nation. This blind worship is a kind of dumbed down, feel good, instant Gandhi-giri, an important component of a convenient historical narrative (that has been) foisted upon successive generations of post independence India (eg. the mythology of chacha Nehru).
Taz said
What are these counter intuitive beliefs? A humble man, he might have been embarrassed by the iconography, but I am sure he had no problems with the icons themselves.
A beautiful sculpture every Delhiite is quite familiar with gyarah moorti
It is too bad for this digression about Muslims objecting – in a way it plays the same us vs. them game that the original objectors had in Riverside. I think one can see Gandhi’s limitations and shortcomings while still wholeheartedly endorsing his appearance as a statue in American cities. There are almost no figures from Asia that have woven their way into American consciousness like Gandhi. As a San Francisco resident. I was delighted to find his statue the other day, after having looked for it for years, and regret that it is tucked behind the Ferry terminal that is not as public as it might be. I like the documentary idea, especially if it leads to even more statues.
Re 4:
Can’t speak for the Pakistanis, but many statues were and continue to be erected post-independence in Bangladesh. They tend not to be figures of notables (other than a few of the students killed during the Language movement), tending more towards anonymous figures representing the Liberation War, Independence, and the usual cliched ideas/concepts like childhood, peace, playfulness, etc. Mostly, one finds them on university grounds, near government buildings, and on major roundabouts.
Given the animosity between the two major political parties in Bangladesh, it’s probably a good idea not to have too many statues of “notables” like Mujib or Ziaur Rahman lying (okay, standing) around. They’d be too tempting a target to deface. Do keep in mind that Bangladesh is still a very young nation, and not enough time has passed to allow these individuals to be viewed as remotely as say, Gandhi is.
Older statues tend to be rather old, considered of historical value, and seen primarily in museums. Unless you came from a nawaab or jamidaar family, even if your house was built in the 19th Century or early 20th Century (fewer and fewer of these now, even in Old Dhaka; they are all making way for multistoreyed apartment complexes), it’s likely to have only abstract bas-relief decorations.
There are, of course, a few fundamentalist wackos who object to statues as being forbidden representations of human or other living beings, but they haven’t succeeded in putting the sculptors out of business yet. In general, though, most Bangladeshis tend not to pay attention to statues unless they plan to use them as backdrops for photographs.
From: Charlotte’s Business Web
Don’t know if there is a statue there or if it is only a proposal. Can someone from Charlotee, clarify?
this is interesting as today a die-hard pakistani girl gave me a ride to the airport today and for the first time i saw her bumper sticker that said “Be the change you want to see in the world” with the little Gandhiji silhouette on it. I thought Pakistani people disliked Gandhiji
From: Inside the UNF student newspaper. You can see the Gandhi statue from behind in the picture. So score one for Jacksonville, Florida.
Gandhi Statue Dedication in Charlotte. Never mind, I answered my own question.
I think Gandhi is woven into the consciousness of American society denoting something noble. I have heard even rabid right wing radio hosts in America referencing Gandhi in noble terms.
I think idolising Gandhi in America started way before India got independence. British even while arresting Gandhi in 1942 for his quit india movement took good care of him because of American pressure.
If you want to know more, I’d suggest reading the negative reports / articles on Gandhi first. That’d convince you that Gandhi is indeed a noble soul and deserves all the praise he gets.
The issue about the Gandhi statue number #1 is just so stupid. Why does everyone have to take everything, contrive and construe it, and then make a big deal of it. The statues are there to represent Gandhi’s beliefs, esp. non-violence, and the Indian independence movement. Gandhi wanted India, current day Pakistan and Bangladesh to be united, and I have no idea why anyone would get mad at someone trying to keep a country united, not someone trying to split it up! I don’t know what it has to do with religion, yeah, he was a Hindu, but he respected all religions and studied them all early on. Whatever religion he was, I don’t believe he was biased as they say.
And just for one little statue, they want the name of the street changed and the city to become a sister-city to a Pakistani city? Seems like its being blown out of proportion to me. And plus, I thought their beef was about religion, so what does it have to do with Pakistan?? If he helped India to gain independence, he helped Pakistan too! So why do they see is if Gandhi had absolutely no connection with them?
Then again, there was the conspiracy theorist I knew who advanced the thesis that the Western glorification of Gandhi has practical imperialist motives. What with a non-violent movement being less bloody (in terms of your own troops) to suppress than say, an armed rebellion, it makes sense to make your subjects idolize someone like Gandhi more than say, Che. 🙂
Mind you, the British knew quite well that they would eventually face armed insurrection if they didn’t “accede” to Gandhi’s non-violent demands. But somehow that aspect is rarely highlighted nowadays when we discuss Gandhi.
In what way do they say he ceded too much to Muslims?
There’s one at James Madison University in VA. The link says it was a gift from the government of India. (?) http://www.jmu.edu/gandhicenter/gandhistatue.shtml