Statue of Mahatma Gandhi, Parliament Square
Statue of Mahatma Gandhi | |
---|---|
Artist | Philip Jackson |
Year | 2015 |
Type | Sculpture |
Medium | Bronze |
Subject | Mahatma Gandhi |
Dimensions | 270 cm (110 in) |
Location | London, SW1 United Kingdom |
51°30′02″N 0°07′38″W / 51.500570°N 0.127241°W |
The statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Parliament Square, Westminster, London, is a work by the sculptor Philip Jackson.
History
In July 2014,
Financing for the statue was by public donations and through sponsorships.[1] This was supported by the work of the Gandhi Statue Memorial Trust, which was set up by Meghnad Desai, Baron Desai, as well as a special advisory panel created by the Government. This was chaired by Sajid Javid MP, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.[4] By the time that planning permission, £100,000 had been raised by the Trust, but a further £500,000 was needed and they sought to raise that by January 2015 in order to tie in with a planned visit to London by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi of India.[3]
The statue was unveiled by the Indian
In June 2020, during the George Floyd protests, the statue was vandalised by protesters along with the statue of Winston Churchill. Someone painted the word "racist" onto the Gandhi statue.[6]
Design
The statue is 9 feet (2.7 m) tall, and made from bronze.[7] It is based on a photograph of Gandhi standing outside the offices of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald in 1931.[5] The plinth that the statue is mounted on is lower than those on the other statues in Parliament Square, which was a deliberate choice by the Gandhi Statue Memorial Trust.[8]
It was planned to be the final statue to be placed in Parliament Square.[9] Because of the placement of the statue of Gandhi, developers are expecting to move the placement for a planned statue of former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, to outside of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in Middlesex Guildhall.[3]
On its unveiling, commentators noted the irony of the statue's placement near the
See also
References
- ^ a b c d "Gandhi Statue To Stand in Parliament Square". Sky News. 8 July 2014. Retrieved 15 March 2015.
- ^ "Mahatma Gandhi Statue Unveiled in London". Sky News. 14 March 2015. Retrieved 15 March 2015.
- ^ a b c Hope, Christopher (9 November 2014). "Revealed: The design for the new £600,000 Gandhi statue in London's Parliament Square". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 15 March 2015.
- ^ "About Us". Gandhi Statue Memorial Trust. Retrieved 15 March 2015.
- ^ a b Dunn, James (14 March 2015), "Gandhi statue unveiled in Parliament Square – next to his old enemy Churchill", The Independent, archived from the original on 24 May 2022, retrieved 15 March 2015
- ^ "35 cops injured in further London violence as Gandhi statue defaced". The Times of India. 9 June 2020.
- ^ "Statue of Mahatma Gandhi unveiled in Parliament Square". BBC News. 14 March 2015. Retrieved 15 March 2015.
- ^ Johnson, Chris (14 March 2015). "New Gandhi statue unveiled in London's Parliament Square". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 March 2015.
- ^ "Making history: the Gandhi statue, Parliament Square, London". Gov.uk. Retrieved 15 March 2015.
- ^ Guha, Ramachandra (21 March 2015). "Statues in a square – Churchill's obsession with Gandhi". The Telegraph (Kolkata). Archived from the original on 21 March 2015. Retrieved 25 March 2015.