S African groups protest racism remarks against Gandhiji, condemn statue removal from Ghana varsity

Several South African Gandhian advocacy groups, including one headed by Mahatma Gandhi's granddaughter, have strongly objected to allegations of racism against the global peace icon and condemned the removal of his statue from a prestigious university in Ghana after complaints that he was racist against black Africans.

India's former president Pranab Mukherjee unveiled the statue at the University of Ghana in Accra in 2016 as a symbol of ties between the two nations. But lecturers and student activists soon began a petition calling for its removal, citing passages written by Gandhi claiming that Indians were "infinitely superior" to black Africans.

Succumbing to the pressure of the protestors, the university management finally removed the statue earlier this week.

The Mahatma's granddaughter Ela Gandhi, who heads the Gandhi Development Trust in Durban, 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," she was quoted as saying by the Sunday Tribune.

The Durban-born peace activist acknowledged the 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.

However, she said, "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."