Eight-foot statue of Mahatma Gandhi unveiled in Johannesburg's Tolstoy Farm

High Commissioner of India, Prabhat Kumar, unveiled the statue to honour Gandhi's stay in South Africa. Busts of Gandhi and Mandela also commissioned by sculptor. Farm donated by friend Herman Kallenbach to sustain families struggling against pass laws. MGRO and Mohan Hira revived the derelict farm. Pravasi Bharatiya Award for Hira. Local community to get involved and support the venture. Empowerment programmes to alleviate poverty.

An eight-foot-tall statue of Mahatma Gandhi has been unveiled at Tolstoy Farm, the commune that he had started during his tenure as a lawyer here in South Africa in the early 20th century.

The larger-than-life clay statue, unveiled on Sunday by the High Commissioner of India, Prabhat Kumar, now joins large busts of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, both commissioned by sculptor Jalandharnath Rajaram Channole, from the Sevagram Ashram in India.

“This statue probably resembles Mahatma Gandhi when he left South Africa at that time. We have seen Mahatma Gandhi’s photographs from 1914, and here he is much older. I think it’s a grand tribute to him at Tolstoy Farm, where he lived for five or six years. From 1910 to 1914, he intermittently lived here,” said Mr. Kumar as he unveiled the statue.

Mr. Kumar recalled that Gandhi’s friend Herman Kallenbach had donated the farm to establish a self-sufficient commune.

“This was because the people from our community here were struggling against the (discriminatory) pass laws and other laws,” he said, referring to the laws that required non-white citizens to carry passbooks for the indigenous Black African community and Astatic registration papers for Indians. Many men and some women voluntarily went to jail with Gandhi to resist these laws.

“They had to also bring up their families and to sustain those families, Kallenbach bought this farm and donated it to Mahatma Gandhi,” Kumar said as he recounted how these families grew fruits and vegetables on Tolstoy Farm with which they sustained themselves.

The envoy said that the same community spirit had to be re-established at Tolstoy Farm as he commended the Mahatma Gandhi Remembrance Organisation (MGRO) and its head, Mohan Hira, for what they had done to revive Tolstoy Farm.