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by chewz 2491 days ago
> In 2018, he successfully led a campaign to force the University of Ghana to remove a statue of India's independence leader Mahatma Gandhi.

Standing at the empty plinth, he gave the Black Power salute, and called for the recognition of African heroes rather than a man who had once referred to black South Africans by a highly offensive racist slur - and had said that Indians were "infinitely superior" to black people.

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Those statements were made as part of a legal petition when he was a young lawyer in his early 20s, freshly arrived in South Africa, and one who'd had little contact with the Africans.

He later came to publicly support African rights and gave many more speeches which asked Indians to draw inspiration from Africans.

Even Mandela forgave him:

> Mandela was well aware of the racist statements made by Gandhi when he was young. He wrote in an article in 1995, “Gandhi must be forgiven those prejudices and judged in the context of the time and circumstances. We are looking here at the young Gandhi, still to become Mahatma, when he was without any human prejudice save that in favour of truth and justice.”

Source: https://thewire.in/history/gandhi-and-africans