Washington: The vandalisation of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue here is disrespectful. Such incidents do not bring people together, top US lawmakers said Thursday. The Mahatma Gandhi statue across the road from the Indian Embassy was vandalised with graffiti and spray painting Wednesday. It prompted the mission to register a complaint with the local law enforcement agencies.
The incident happened during the week of nationwide protests against the custodial killing of African-American George Floyd in Minneapolis. George Floyd died May 25 while in police custody.
The Trump campaign termed the incident ‘very disappointing’. US Ambassador to India Ken Juster apologised. He said he is sorry to see the desecration of the Gandhi statue.
The incident is reported to have taken place on the intervening night of June 2 and 3, officials said.
“The incident is more evidence that violent radicals and run of the mill crazies have hijacked legitimate protests. They do so to create anarchy or for their own purposes,” Senator Marco Rubio said. “Vandalising Gandhi’s statue has nothing to do with what the protests are about,” the senator added.
Protests against the custodial killing of Floyd turned violent in some places in the US including here. Protestors burnt a historic church and damaged monuments like the Lincoln Memorial.
“It’s disgraceful to see the defacing of the Gandhi statue in DC,” North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis said. “Gandhi was a pioneer of peaceful protesting, demonstrating the great change it can bring. Rioting, looting and vandalising do not bring us together,” asserted Tillis.
The vandalized statue of Gandhi now has been covered. Efforts are on clean up the site at the earliest.
“We condemn this disrespectful act. We are working with the relevant authorities and the Embassy of India to rectify the situation,” a US state department spokesperson said.
“Very disappointing,” tweeted Kimberly Guilfoyle, advisor to Donald J Trump for ‘President Inc’. Guilfoyle tweeted along with a quote of Gandhi: “Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization.”
Gandhi’s is one of the few statues of a foreign leader on a federal land in Washington DC. It was dedicated by the former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in the presence of the then US president Bill Clinton. The inauguration of the statue took place September 16, 2000, during Vajpayee’s state visit to the US.
According to the Indian Embassy website, the sculpture of Mahatma Gandhi is cast in bronze as a statue to a height of 8 feet 8 inches. It shows Gandhi in stride, as a leader and man of action. The statue evokes memories of his 1930 protest march against salt-tax.
