Cape Town to get statue of ‘racist’ Gandhi, even though most don’t want it

Two-thirds of people who commented on a plan to erect a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Cape Town objected – but the city council is going ahead anyway.

One of the objectors, who said the Indian nationalist leader was “a person who expressed extreme racial views against black people”, said he was prepared to fight the decision all the way to the Constitutional Court.

Many of the 40 objectors to the statue, which will be erected in the Heerengracht outside the Cape Town International Convention Centre, said if it went ahead the city would be faced with another #RhodesMustFall saga.

But last week the mayoral committee decided to ignore the objections and accept the Indian government’s offer to supply the life-size statue to mark the 150th anniversary of Gandhi’s birth on October 2 1869.

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