A statue of Mahatma Gandhi will be placed in London’s Parliament Square alongside other famous statesmen, including his political adversary Winston Churchill, the British government said on Tuesday.
“Gandhi remains a towering inspiration and a source of strength,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in announcing the planned statue during a visit to New Delhi on Tuesday, according to a statement from Britain’s Foreign Office.
The Gandhi statue would also join others of famous British and foreign statesmen, including Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela. The clipped green lawn of Parliament Square is also a site for demonstrations and protests next to the country’s Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey.
Britain hopes the new statue will be up by the summer of 2015, in time for the 100th anniversary of Gandhi’s return to India from South Africa, where he worked as a lawyer after earning his law degree in London.
