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Boston Globe article about Mohandas K. Gandhi's statue (fwd)
Forwarded message:
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 00:52:34 -0500 (EST)
From: Sandeep Kumar Gupta <skgupta@amsterdam.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Boston Globe article about Mohandas K. Gandhi's statue
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>From the December 7, 1994 edition of The Boston Globe.
Front page of the Living Arts Section, page 37.
Along side the article is a photo of the statue with the caption:
"The unwelcome Gandhi."
Gandhi Disturbs Sherborn's Peace of Mind, by Alex Beam
Sherborn - The effect is quite jarring. I am driving through horse
country, this tranquil land of 3-acre zoning, as the road winds gently
down into the center of town. I pass by Sherborn's dignified war
memorial, a baleful Madonna and child mourning the fallen heroes of
this tiny bedroom community. And then just 50 yards ahead, I catch
sight of ... It.
"It" is clearly visible - indeed, too visible - from the road: a small,
open plaza, with six low walls radiating away from a central patio.
This monument, the recently unveiled Pacifist Memorial, has a companion
statue to the sad-eyed Madonna: An 8-foot-tall bronze effigy of
Mohandas K. Gandhi.
Can you imagine! The effrontery! Needless to say, the town is up in
arms. Vandals have defaced the site with blue paint. The chairman of
the Zoning Board recently resigned his post in order to challenge the
Gandhi statue's building permit. (The statue turned out not to need
a permit.)
"This is a very strong conservative area where people go back to the
Revolutionary War," says Alex Dowse, whose family has lived in Sherborn
since 1775. (The Dowse genealogical table hangs on a wall in Town Hall,
alongside the many recruiting posters from our nation's foreign
entanglements.) The statue "is an affront to the sacrifices of the
people of this town for freedom."
Hear, hear! Where will it all end? What simpering, second-rate
peacenik will they choose to eulogize next? Mother Teresa? Martin
Luther King?
There are, of course, certain ironies attending Mr. G's chilly reception
in this elite suburban enclave. One could argue that there are
superficial similarities between the man whom Winston Churchill dismissed
as a "half-naked fakir" and the storied heroes of our own glorious
revolution. All struggled against British imperialism, albeit in
different eras. And they succeeded. But the comparisons end there.
Whereas our valiant, whiskey-inflamed yeomen grabbed their muskets and
sniped at many a retreating Redcoat from behind many a sheltering chestnut
tree, Gandhi espoused different tactics entirely. As a political leader,
his tools were nonviolent resistance, boycotts and hunger strikes. Sure,
he freed 100 million people, but at the end of the day he was just another
yellow-belly who never picked up a gun.
Yes, there are certain ironies. But it seems fair to say they are lost
on the burghers of Sherborn.
The Pacifist Memorial and the offending statue stand on property belonging
to 47-year-old Lewis Randa, whom his neighbors describe as a cross between
a 1960s flower child and P. T. Barnum. It is a description that fits
Randa to a T.
Interviewed inside his 3-acre Strawberry Fields compound that houses his
Peace Abbey and Life Experience School, Randa tells of pulling many a
financial rabbit out of the hat to give peace a chance in Sherborn.
Yoko Ono once provided a packet of money to save his mortgage. On another
occasion, Senate President William Bulger and conservative Republican
David Locke teamed up to restore key operating funds for the school,
which administers some special education programs for the state.
Randa is somewhat paranoid, but, to be fair, he does have enemies. Had
he been required to obtain a building permit for his statue, "there's no
way the town would have allowed it," he admits. Even though Randa
unveiled his plans for a Pacifist Memorial at a splashy groundbreaking
ceremony in February attended by poet Maya Angelou, "nobody took me
seriously," he says. "People thought I was installing a new septic system."
Randa professes to see the brighter side of human nature: "My neighbors
are good and decent people. They will come to love this statue." And
if they don't? "Sherborn will be known either as the town that has a
Gandhi statue, or as the town that took one down."
Alex Beam's Internet address is beam@globe.com.
=======================================================================
Sandeep
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skgupta@mit.edu
"God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice.
You must take it. The only choice is how." - Henry Ward Beecher
