Gandhi to stand with British foes

By Agencies in New Delhi | China Daily | Updated: 2014-07-09 07:33

Mahatma Gandhi, who led efforts to end British rule in India and was repeatedly imprisoned, will be honored with a statue outside the UK Parliament that will stand alongside tributes to several colonial-era adversaries.

British Finance Minister George Osborne, on a trip to New Delhi to meet the new government of Narendra Modi, wrote on Twitter that Britain would "honor his memory" with a statue in Parliament Square.

India's hero of independence will rub shoulders with his one-time nemesis, British wartime prime minister Winston Churchill, who once said he hoped Gandhi would die from fasting and famously derided him as a "half-naked fakir".

The Gandhi statue will stand alongside one of Jan Smuts, a leader of South Africa in the early 20th century who favored racial segregation.

Gandhi was jailed by Smuts' government for his work campaigning for the rights of downtrodden Indians, the forerunner to his more-famous fight at home that would strike fear into successive British governments until India's independence in 1947.

"I hope this new memorial will be a lasting and fitting tribute to his memory in Britain, and a permanent monument to our friendship with India," Osborne said in a statement.

Parliament Square is opposite the Palace of Westminster, which houses the British legislature and contains statues of statesmen and other historical figures, including South Africa's Nelson Mandela.

Osborne and Foreign Secretary William Hague were expected to meet Modi later on Tuesday as part of efforts to push for trade and access for British companies to the Indian market.

"Gandhi remains a towering inspiration and a source of strength," Hague said of the planned statue during his visit to New Delhi on Tuesday, according to a statement from Britain's Foreign Office.

Britain hopes the new statue will be up by the summer of 2015, in time for the 100th anniversary of Gandhi's return to India from South Africa, where he worked as a lawyer after earning his law degree in London.

AFP - AP