We are pleased that the Ghana Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration has indicated that it would “want to remove the statue of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi from the University of Ghana campus”. We have sent a petition for the removal of the statue to the Council of the University of Ghana (which has garnered almost 2,000 signatures as of the time of this statement), and others have sent a petition that it should remain (with 230 signatures as of the time of this statement). Given that the petitioners for the removal include lecturers and students, we have formed our opinions of Gandhi based on the research of his letters and papers available to us, as would be expected in an academic environment. Although the Ministry asserts Gandhi’s role as one of the “most outstanding personalities of the last century who demonstrated non-violence”, albeit that he “evolved”, we beg to differ, especially with respect to his stance on racism.  Based on Gandhi's own writings, he clearly embraced a hierarchy of the races with whites at the top, followed by Indians (as part of an Indo-Aryan alliance), then coloureds, and with blacks (kaffirs) at the bottom. To say that what Gandhi wrote about Africans was merely an indication that he was a product of his time would be to do injustice to the many anti-racism/anti-caste scholars and activists of Indian and African descent of the same era such as Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956), Periyar E. V. Ramasamy (1879-1973), Booker T Washington (1856-1915), Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862–1931), W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) or Rosa Parks (1913-2005). Even Gandhi’s pacifist past which won him international accolades is severely punctured by his actions and remarks on war, which formed much of the basis for his being rejected for the Nobel Peace Prize on multiple occasions. Prior to his arrival in South Africa, the Zulus were in the middle of a nonviolent civil rights movement against the British and refused to pay taxes and be enslaved. Gandhi’s writings show he supported the 1906 British war on the Zulus referred to by the British as the “Bambatha Rebellion”. Several quotes can be found, here are two: “If the Government only realised what reserve force is being wasted, they would make use of it and give Indians the opportunity of a thorough training for actual warfare… A very fine volunteer corps could be formed from Colonial-born Indians that would be second to none in Natal in smartness and efficiency” (Nov. 18, 1905); “It is not for us to say whether the revolt of the Kaffirs is justified or not. We are in Natal by virtue of British power. Our very existence depends upon it. It is therefore our duty to render whatever help we can. There was a discussion in the Press as to what part the Indian community would play in the event of an actual war. We have already declared in the English columns of this journal that the Indian community is ready to play its part” (Apr. 14, 1906). We also need to state for the record that while Gandhi may have been revered by some Indians and other nationals who may not have been aware of the full spectrum of Gandhi’s writings, speeches, and activities, there are also millions of others (including Dalits, Sikhs, Adivasis, Muslims, Dravidians, etc.) who to date remain unhappy about the effect he has had on their lives. Gandhi’s contemporaries were affected by his adherence to maintaining the varnasrama dharma/chaturvarna ‘caste system’. The effects of the maintenance of the caste system reverberates through India to this day via continued caste-based violence, rape, murder, immolation, massacres, etc. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste-related_violence_in_India. This violence has also been extended to a number of black Africans who have been bludgeoned to death in broad daylight and attacked in several high-profile incidents in India, with a particularly gruesome torture and beheading occurring in 2010. Curiously, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is concerned about the safety of an inanimate object in the form of a statue of Gandhi, we are yet to hear an outcry for the loss of life and limb by Africans and indigenous blacks in India. (see http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a-timeline-of-attacks-against-african-nationals/article8667640.ece). It is now up to the University of Ghana Council to fact-check-every quote by Gandhi and to weigh the pros and cons of the arguments presented and take a decision. This is exactly what the Council has said it will do in a letter addressed to the petitioners for the removal of the statue dated September 30, 2016. We also hope that the Ministry continues to support the rights of Ghanaians to make requests of public institutions. Conclusion: Precisely because of the strong relations between Ghana and India we are sure that as more people – Ghanaian, Indian and others – become privy to the details of Gandhi’s writings, work and life, they will conclude, as we have done, that quoting Gandhi’s own words does not constitute “verbal attacks” of any sort. We believe that peace-loving Pan-Africanists and Indians who share the ideals of our first president Kwame Nkrumah and India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, would, at the very least, appreciate our discomfort with having his statue placed on the campus of a Ghanaian (African) university. We have requested the University to be given an opportunity to fund raise for the erection of a statue or statues of a Ghanaian/African hero(es)/heroine(s) to grace our University campus. We reiterate that we are pleased that the statue will be (temporarily?) relocated and that the Council of the University of Ghana, to whom we directed our petition, has indicated that it will consider our petition for the statue’s removal at its next meeting. Suggested Further Reading: http://www.gandhism.org/ so that they can make up their own minds based on documentation and research. BR Ambedkar, "What Congress and Gandhi have done to the Untouchables" (1945); GB Singh, “Gandhi: Behind the Mask of Divinity” (2004); “Gandhi under cross examination” (2009); Booker prize-winning author Arundhati Roy “The Doctor and The Saint” (2014); Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed “The South African Gandhi—Stretcher bearer of Empire” (2015). Oct 12, 2016