Mahatma Gandhi
Dedicated: October 2, 2004

Houston became the first city in Texas to honor Mahatma Gandhi with a full-size statue commemorating the Indian leader who preached peace and nonviolence. His philosophy profoundly influenced Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who led the Civil Rights movement in America. On June 29, 2002, Krishna Vavilala, the Director of the India Culture Center (ICC), announced at a Peace Rally at City Hall that the Indian community would gift a Gandhi statue to Houston as a lasting symbol of peace and nonviolence.

The Gandhi sculpture has been part of the City of Houston art collection since 2003, when it was made possible through a group effort. Located in Hermann Park in a prominent location near the International Sculpture Garden and the Houston Garden Center, Mahatma Gandhi is portrayed in bronze and stands on a polished granite base. Gandhi faces the Martin Luther King, Jr. sculpture. Both Gandhi and King advanced civil rights through nonviolence. Volunteers from the Indian Culture Center donated the labor and some of the materials, including the marble base. The Indian Government donated the statue, the work of Ram V. Sutar, a prolific Indian artist born in 1925. Sutar is best known as the sculptor of the colossal Indian statesman and independence activist Vallabhbhai Patel, who was the first deputy prime minister and home minister of independent India, and an adherent of Mahatma Gandhi during the nonviolent Indian independence movement. Located in Gujarat, India, the Patel sculpture is clad in bronze and measures a remarkable 597 feet. Sutar’s Gandhi in Houston is also bronze, and significantly closer to life-sized at 6 feet 5 inches, which is a foot taller than Gandhi was.

On the plaque an inscription about Gandhi reads: An apostle of truth, peace, and nonviolence who led India to freedom from British rule in 1947 and is hailed as the Father of the Nation.

The statue was adopted by the Family of Krishna and Lakshmi Vavilala in their honor.

“Non-violence and Truth are inseparable;
one cannot exist without the other.”
Mahatma Gandhi