US: Mahatma Gandhi's statue vandalised in California

India on Saturday condemned the vandalising of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in California by unidentified persons, the second such incident in the US in little more than a month, and sought a thorough investigation into the matter. The external affairs ministry said in a statement that the Indian embassy in Washington took up the issue with the US state department and called for a “thorough investigation into the incident and appropriate action against those responsible for this despicable act. India’s consulate in San Francisco in California state separately took up the matter with the city of Davis and local law enforcement authorities, who initiated an investigation. The mayor of Davis “deeply regretted the incident” and said local authorities had initiated an investigation, the statement said.

In US, unknown miscreants have vandalised, broken and ripped from the base a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in a park in  California.Shocked India- Americans across the country have demanded that the officials investigate it as an incident of hate crime. The 6-ft tall, 650-pound (294 kg) bronze statue of Gandhi, in the Central Park of the City of Davis in Northern California, appeared to have been sawed off at the ankles and half its face was severed and missing, local Davis Enterprise daily reported.The vandalised statue of Mahatma Gandhi was found by a park employee in the early hours of the morning of January 27, the police said.

The statue is being removed and will be stored in a safe place until it can be evaluated, said Davis City councilman Lucas Frerichs. “Seeing as it’s a cultural icon to a portion of the people in Davis, we are taking it very seriously,” Deputy Chief Paul Doroshov of the Davis Police Department. The statue of Mahatma Gandhi, which was donated by the Indian government to the city of Davis, was installed by the city council four years ago amidst protests from anti-Gandhi and anti-India organisations. Organisation for Minorities in India (OFMI), which spearheaded these protests and opposed the installation of the statue. The City of Davis had however voted to go ahead with the installation. Since then OFMI had launched a campaign to remove the statue of Mahatma Gandhi.

In 2016, the OFMI was part of a campaign to remove the mentions of 'India' from the sixth and seventh grade California school textbooks and replace them with ‘South Asia’. After massive protests from parents and students, the California Department of Education had dropped the controversial changes.Appalled at the desecration, the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) has demanded that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigate the incident as a hate crime.We condemn this cowardly desecration and call upon the Department of Homeland Security and FBI to investigate this hate crime, as it was likely done with the intention of intimidating the Indian American community, said HAF California Advocacy Director Easan Katir, a former member of the Davis Business and Finance Commission.

This is not the first time a statue of Mahatma Gandhi has been desecrated. In December 2020, "Khalistani-supporters" had desecrated a Mahatma Gandhi statue in Washington, DC in front of the Indian Embassy.