Community says 'no' to Gandhi's statue in Melbourne’s Dandenong

“Being an Indian, it is difficult to digest that our own community has said no to a Gandhi statue here in Melbourne”, says Vasan Srinivasan, the President of the Federation of Indian Associations of Victoria (FIAV).

Mahatma Gandhi Source: wikimediaCC

The Federation of Indian Associations of Victoria (FIAV)’s proposal to set up a life-size bronze statue of Mahatma Gandhi, outside the station at the south-eastern suburb of Dandenong has been rejected by the local community of Melbourne.

FIAV’s President Vasan Srinivasan told SBS Punjabi, that far more than 50 per cent of the participants said no to their plan of installing Gandhi’s statue out of the total 960 members of the community who took part in the survey that was conducted by the Greater Dandenong City Council.

“Being an Indian, it is difficult to digest that our own community has said no to a Gandhi statue here in Melbourne”, said Mr Srinivasan.

He also told SBS Punjabi, that at least 38 per cent of the participants were from Dandenong, which is home to at least 52,000 people of Indian origin.

“It is pretty uneasy, but since we went in for the democratic process, we don’t have a choice now, we will have to abide by the community’s decision”, added Mr Srinivasan.

Mahatma Gandhi ca. 1931. Source: AAP

The Dandenong council confirmed that the proposal has been shot down.

Meanwhile, another draft to set up a statue of the 12^th century philosopher and social reformer Basava has also been spurned based on the assumption that “if the community is averse to the idea of a Gandhi statue, they wouldn’t want Guru Basava’s statue either”, informed Mr Srinivasan.

But FIAV is not yet ready to give up. 

It is now pinning hopes on installing the Gandhi statue at the proposed Indian Community Center site.

However, FIAV is not alone in its pursuit of embodying Gandhi and his ideologies in Australia.

Australia already has two life-sized statues of the Indian leader who is credited with getting India Independence after 200 years of British rule, using non-violence as his weapon- one in Brisbane and another in Canberra, besides a sculpture in Adelaide.

There was also a temporary mural of Gandhi installed at Dandenong's Little India precinct earlier this year, which coincided with the Melbourne Immigration Museum’s digital exhibition titled “Mahatma Gandhi-An Immigrant”.

Melbourne Immigration Museum’s digital exhibition titled “Mahatma Gandhi-An Immigrant”. Source: Twitter/PBK

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