The first statue of Mahatma Gandhi to be installed at the UN headquarters will be unveiled today.

Last updated on August 10th, 2023 at 03:38 pm

A bust of Mahatma Gandhi will be installed at the United Nations headquarters in New York. The ceremony unveiling it is expected to be attended by all 15 Security Council members, as well as the five new members who will join the Council on January 1, 2023. As India prepares to take on the presidency of the UN Security Council, it has gifted the UN a bust of Mahatma Gandhi, which will be placed on the North Lawn of the UN building.

The bust of renowned Indian sculptor Ram Sutar, who was awarded the Padma Shree and also designed the ‘Statue of Unity in Gujarat with a height of 182cm, will be unveiled today during External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s visit to the UN for India’s month-long presidency of the Council.

This will be the first Gandhi sculpture to be installed at the United Nations headquarters, which proudly displays gifts and artifacts from all over the world.

Among the notable works of art at the UN Headquarters are a section of the Berlin Wall donated by Germany, the Soviet sculpture ‘Let Us Beat Swords into Ploughshares,’ A life-size bronze statue of Nelson Mandela, donated by South Africa, and the ‘Guernica’ tapestry, based on Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica, are on display.

An 11th-century black-stone statue of ‘Surya,’ the Sun God, which was donated on July 26, 1982, is the other Indian gift on display at the United Nations Headquarters. The Conference Building currently houses a statue given to the UN as a gift by the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Javier Perez de Cuellar, who was the Secretary-General of the United Nations at the time, accepted the sculpture on behalf of the organization.