Gandhi gets London statue near his nemesis, Churchill

LONDON: A statue of Mahatma Gandhi was unveiled on Saturday in London's prestigious Parliament Square, a space packed mostly with monuments to men who served the British Empire that Gandhi helped destroy.
In an ironic twist noted by finance minister Arun Jaitley who unveiled the 9-foot-tall statue , Gandhi's likeness now shares the same space as a statue of Britain's former leader Winston Churchill, who tried to thwart Indian independence and who despised Gandhi and his aims."Some would detect an irony in the great PM sharing a public space with the man he described as a 'half-naked fakir'," Jaitley said.
But almost seven decades after India won independence from Britain, thanks in large part to Gandhi's peaceful campaign, relations between the two countries are strong with both keen to boost economic ties.
Prime Minister David Cameron, who looked on as Jaitley removed a drape from the statue, said the monument celebrated the special friendship between the world's oldest democracy and its largest. Actor Amitabh Bachchan spoke, as did Gandhi's grandson Shri Gopalkrishna Gandhi. The statue of Gandhi was crafted by British sculptor Philip Jackson. It is based on a photograph of Gandhi standing outside the offices of the British prime minister in 1931.
The statue is lower than others on the square, a deliberate decision made by the Gandhi Statue Memorial Trust, which raised money for the monument, to reflect the fact that Gandhi considered himself a man of the people.