A statue of Mahatma Gandhi is to be put up in the South African city of Cape Town despite the majority of people who commented on the plans saying they did not want it, Times Live reports.
Many oppose the Indian independence leader’s commemoration as they say he was racist.
As a young man, Gandhi lived and worked in South Africa, and although he has inspired people throughout the world, his comments on black Africans have been controversial.
In his early writings, he used a highly offensive racist slur to refer to black South Africans and also said that Indians were “infinitely superior” to black people.
One person told Times Live that Gandhi had “expressed extreme racial views against black people”.
Forty people objected to the statue, saying that it could lead to a repetition of the month-long #RhodesMustFall protest, calling for the University of
Cape Town to remove a statue of British colonialist Cecil Rhodes in 2015.
But plans are going ahead to accept the statue from the Indian government to mark the 150th anniversary of Gandhi’s birth on 2 October, 1869.
A statue of Gandhi was removed from the University of Ghana in December.
Work to build one in Malawi was halted in October after more than 3,000 people signed a petition arguing he had done nothing to benefit the country.
