The Hindu : National : Gandhiji’s statue “treated badly” at London Tussauds

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Gandhiji’s statue “treated badly” at London Tussauds

Special Correspondent

AHMEDABAD: The National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) has protested against the Mahatma Gandhi statue at Madame Tussauds’ wax museum in London being placed near an ice-cream parlour close to a dustbin on the second floor.

NCCL Ahmedabad-based president V. K. Saxena, who noticed the “insulting treatment” to the Father of the Nation during a recent visit to England, has written to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He has marked copies to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Speaker of the Lok Sabha Somnath Chatterjee, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha L. K. Advani, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, urging them to take up the issue with the British authorities.

Mr. Saxena said he had seen Gandhiji’s statue gracefully placed with other world political leaders on the first floor of the museum during his previous visits to the U.K. But during his recent visit, he found the statue removed to second floor and placed in an isolated corner.

In his letter, he wondered why the statue was shifted . Was it a case of a “racial bias” against India and a demonstration of apartheid that the Father of the Nation fought all his life?

Mr. Saxena said the statue of the former President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, was also placed on the second floor of the world-famous museum, but argued that there was a difference in the treatment given to the two statues. “It is an insult to one of the greatest human beings who treaded the earth in the last century and India,” he said.

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