The statue is located near the President's Estate, New Delhi, at the T-junction where Sardar Patel Marg meets Mother Teresa Crescent.[3][4][5] The statue is approached through Sardar Patel Marg and the entire locality is known as Gyarah Murti.[6]
The statue is located at the junction of Sardar Patel Marg and Mother Teresa Crescent.
The statue features at its head Mahatma Gandhi who is followed by ten other persons who include a woman with a sari draped over her head, a group of three men – a Hindu, a Sikh and a Muslim, a turbaned man, an emaciated man, a Christian priest, a woman and a young man urging a tired old man to join the group.[13] The statues are bronze cast and have a height of 8 feet (2.4 m), and the entire installation is 26 metres (85 ft) long and 3 metres (9.8 ft) tall.[14][15]
It is commonly believed that the statue represents Gandhi's march to Dandi and that certain figures have been modelled on Matangini Hazra, Sarojini Naidu, Brahmabandhab Upadhyay and Abbas Tyabji.[16][17] However, both these assumptions have been disputed. It has been contended that the statue is not a representation of the Salt March as were no women among the group of satyagrahis who accompanied Gandhi on this march.[18] The plaque at the statue states that it was built "In memory of the countless Indians who, generation after generation, struggled and sacrificed against foreign rule. Mahatma Gandhi's leadership of the Indian National Congress finally won independence and Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Prime Minister of free India on 15 August 1947."[19] As is the case in Choudhary's other works, the figures that constitute the Gyarah Murti, with the exception of Gandhi, are not persons of eminence but represent common people drawn from various classes and communities of India united in the common cause of seeking India's independence.[20] The statue is one of Delhi's best-known examples of public art.[21][22]
Replicas and other depictions
Reverse of the ₹500 banknote between October 1997 – November 2016
Who Deviated First?, a digital print on archival paper by the artist Gigi Scaria, is a morphed photograph of the Gyarah Murti where the statues following Gandhi have been turned around and appear to walk in the opposite direction.[23][24] The 2010 work is a comment on India's divergence from Gandhi's ideals and its growing communal and caste violence.[25][26]
A replica of the Gyarah Murti was installed in Mysore, Karnataka, in 2011, whereas the copy built in 2015 in Godhra in Gujarat met with controversy when it emerged that it had only nine followers instead of ten as in the original.[27][28][29] Following widespread criticism, the municipal authorities were forced to fix the error.[30][31]
Gyarah Murti featured on a 2010 postage stamp issued by Togo.[32] It also featured on a 2019 postage stamp released by India Post as part of a series on Gandhian heritage in Modern India to commemorate the 150th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi.[33]
India's 500-rupee currency note featured the statue on its reverse side.[34][35]
Controversies
In 1999 the round spectacles on Gandhi's statue were stolen, and the statue has since remained without them. The thief was never caught, and the theft has remained unresolved.[36][37]
