Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi is one of many figures standing in the Fresno State Peace Garden, next to Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Cesar Chavez and Jane Addams.
The mission of the Peace Garden is clear:
“Where we can recognize the contribution of and pay homage to those whose lives and struggles are exemplary in fighting prejudice, discrimination, and oppression, and who have made a significant impact in paving the way for a just and humane social order.”
This mission can’t coexist with a statue of a man who encouraged racism and religiously justified sexual abuse. What kind of message does this send to students, and even more to the high schools and middle schools that tour our campus every day?
Multiple universities and cities have taken action and removed their Gandhi statues over time.
I believe Fresno State needs to take down the Gandhi statue in the Peace Garden because the actions and beliefs of Gandhi, particularly his history of promoting racist systems and his controversial stance on issues of caste and gender, are at odds with the values that the Peace Garden aims to uphold.
Gandhi is well-known by pretty much everyone. He has inspired extremely important public figures like Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. to move forward with peaceful protests and fight for racial inequalities in a more effective way.
However, the bad far outweighs the good.
Gandhi believed in two extremely harmful systems: the caste system and the civilized scale.
The caste system is prevalent in India and divides Hindus into social groups based on their work, duty and class. Caste dictates every aspect of Hindu religious and social lives. They cannot marry outside their social class, they live in segregated colonies and those on the higher end of the system will not accept anything or speak to those on the lower castes.
The civilized scale is basically a ranking system. Those at the top of the scale are believed to be more civilized, while those at the bottom of the scale are thought to be uncivilized. In Gandhi’s hierarchy, he placed white people at the top of the scale, with number one being Europeans, and black people at the bottom of the scale.
Gandhi also believed in peaceful fights for equality, but under certain circumstances. He was a firm believer in separating Indians’ fight for freedom from Africans’ fight for freedom, as he believed that Africans were inferior to Indians and he wanted nothing to do with them.
Throughout this separation of fights, he was actively trying to spatter with whites to subjugate other races that were lower on the civilized scale, building relationships to further promote racism based on his hierarchy.
Gandhi was firm in his religion and took a vow of celibacy.
During his vow, he had moral tests done regularly. These tests involved sleeping next to young, naked women and not engaging in any sexual activities. Most of the time, he would pick his grandnieces for the tests.
Another one of Gandhi’s beliefs was that married men should not sleep with their wives, instead their wives had to sleep next to him.
As his power remained and the years went on, Gandhi would continue to use his power and religion to justify sexually abusing women, including his relatives.
Gandhi is one of the most famous names that many associate with peace; however, from the very beginning, Gandhi proved time and time again that he was the opposite.
Of course, Gandhi did a lot for racial inequality and peaceful protesting, but how can he be seen as “fighting prejudice, discrimination and oppression” when he continuously believed, promoted and implemented systems that did the complete opposite. Gandhi’s achievements don’t excuse the deeply problematic views he held, his flaws deserve just as much attention as his so-called triumphs.
