[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 80 (Tuesday, June 10, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5444-S5445]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. MOYNIHAN (for himself and Mr. Sarbames):
  S. 863. A bill to authorize the Government of India to establish a 
memorial to honor Mahatma Gandhi in the District of Columbia; to the 
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.


            Legislation to Establish Mahatma Gandhi Memorial

  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce a bill to authorize 
the placement of a statue of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi --Mahatma 
Gandhi--on Federal land across the street from the Indian embassy in 
Washington DC. The Government of India has offered a statue of Gandhi 
as a gift to the United States. In order to place it on Federal land, 
an act of Congress is required. This bill will fulfill just that 
purpose, and I thank the Senator from Florida [Mr. Mack] and the 
Senator from Maryland, [Mr. Sarbanes] for joining me in this endeavor.
  India is currently celebrating the 50th anniversary of its 
independence. Authorizing the placement of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, 
often called the father of the Indian nation, would serve as a fitting 
tribute to Indian democracy which has survived--in fact, thrived--
despite enormous challenges, and a symbol of the growing strength of 
the bonds between our two countries.
  It is particularly appropriate that a statue of Mahatma Gandhi be 
selected for this purpose. The effects of his non-

[[Page S5445]]

violent actions and the philosophy which guided them were not limited 
to his country, nor his time. His influence in the United States was 
most notably felt in the civil rights movement, but has also infused 
all levels of our society.
  If I may invade ever so slightly the privacy of the President's 
luncheon table, in May 1994, Mr. Clinton had as his guest the 
distinguished Prime Minister of India, Mr. P.V. Narasimha Rao, who in 
his youth was a follower of Mahatma Gandhi. In a graceful passage, 
Prime Minister Rao related how it came to pass that Mahatma Gandhi, 
caught up in the struggle for fair treatment to the Indian community in 
South Africa, and in consequence in jail, read Thoreau's essay on 
``Civil Disobedience'' which confirmed his view that an honest man is 
duty-bound to violate unjust laws. He took this view home with him, and 
in the end the British raj gave way to an independent Republic of 
India. Then Martin Luther King, Jr., repatriated the idea and so began 
the great civil rights movement of this century.
  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., has written of the singular influence 
Gandhi's message of nonviolent resistance had on him when he first 
learned of it while studying at Crozier Theological Seminary in 
Philadelphia. He would later describe that influence in his first book, 
``Stride Toward Freedom'':

       As I read I became deeply fascinated by [Gandhi's] 
     philosophy of non-violent resistance . . . as I delved deeper 
     into the philosophy of Gandhi, my skepticism concerning the 
     power of love gradually diminished, and I came to see its 
     potency in the area of social reform . . . prior to reading 
     Gandhi, I had concluded that the love ethics of Jesus were 
     only effective in individual relationships . . . but after 
     reading Gandhi, I saw how utterly mistaken I was.
       . . . It was in this Gandhian emphasis on love and non-
     violence that I discovered the method for social reform that 
     I had been seeking for so many months . . . I came to feel 
     that this was the only morally and practically sound method 
     open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom . . . 
     this principle became the guiding light of our movement. 
     Christ furnished the spirit and motivation and Gandhi 
     furnished the method.

  Martin Luther King, Jr., believed that Gandhi's philosophy of 
nonviolent resistance was the guiding light of the American civil 
rights movement. As Dr. King wrote, ``Gandhi furnished the message.'' A 
statue of Gandhi, given as a gift from the Government of India, on a 
small plot of Federal land along Massachusetts Avenue, in front of the 
Indian Embassy, will stand not only as a tribute to the shared values 
of the two largest democracies in the world but will also pay tribute 
to the lasting influence of Gandhian thought on the United States. An 
influence that is so pervasive that when the President and the Prime 
Minister of India meet at the White House for lunch, a half-century 
after Gandhi's death, it is no surprise that he should be a topic of 
conversation.
                                 ______