Beijing: The celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary, which is held every year since 2005 at the Chaoyang park in the Chinese capital, was shifted to the Indian Embassy premises in the last minute, Wednesday after the Chinese government denied permission to conduct hold the event, officials here said. However, no explanation was given by the Chinese authorities as to why the permission was denied.
For the last 14 years, Gandhi Jayanti celebrations were being conducted at the picturesque Chaoyang park after a statue of the ‘Father of the Nation’ sculpted by famous Chinese sculptor Yuan Xikun was installed there in 2005. It is the park has the only sculpture of Gandhi in China.
Every year the Indian Embassy along with Yuan, who is also the curator of the Jin Tai art museum located in the same park, has been organizing the October 2 event with Chinese school children reciting Mahatma’s famous quotes and Indian community members singing Gandhi bhajans.
Surprisingly, this year the permission was not received even though it was applied well in advance like every year, the embassy officials said.
The event was shifted to the embassy auditorium after the museum informed the Mission that the event cannot be held in the absence of permission. The embassy officials who were surprised by the denial had to make alternate arrangements in a hurry to shift the function to the embassy premises.
Meanwhile, Indian Ambassador to China, Vikram Misri, addressed the event held at the Indian Embassy to mark the 150th birth anniversary of the Mahatma.
Later in the evening, Vikram Misri felicitated 13 Chinese artists from the China Artists Association who painted Mahatma Gandhi’s portraits, unveiled by the diplomat, as part of the event.
For decades Gandhi, a contemporary of Chairman Mao Zedong who led China’s national liberation movement, has remained an enigma in China as the two leaders professed contrasting political philosophies.
While Mao remained a firm advocate of violent liberation movements with his famous dictum that power flows out of barrel of the gun, Gandhi’s successful non-violent movement against British, in contrast struggled to catch the attention of Chinese.
PTI