Mahatma Gandhi will be first BAME figure on British coin
MAHATMA GANDHI is set to become the first non-white person to feature on British currency, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.
The Royal Mint Advisory Committee is working to create a coin featuring the anti-colonial campaigner, who led the protest against British rule in India.
Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, last night threw his support behind a campaign for BAME figures to feature on coins, saying their contribution to Britain should be recognised. In a letter to former Conservative candidate Zehra Zaidi, who is leading the We Too Built Britain campaign, which has called for ethnic minority people to feature on currency, Mr Sunak said: “Black, Asian and other ethnic minority communities have made a profound contribution to the shared history of the UK.
“For generations, ethnic minority groups have fought and died for this country we have built together, taught our children, nursed the sick, cared for the elderly, and through their enterprising spirit have started some of our most exciting and dynamic businesses, creating jobs and driving growth.”
The Telegraph revealed last week that Mr Sunak was looking at proposals from the campaign, which is supported by a host of historians and MPs.
The Royal Mint Advisory Committee is an independent committee made up of experts who recommend themes and designs of coins to the Chancellor, in his role as Master of the Mint.
Mr Sunak added: “I am writing today to the chair of the Royal Mint Advisory Committee… asking the subcommittee on themes to consider recognising the contributions of black,
Asian, and other ethnic minority individuals – not just to our history, but to our present and future as well”.
Ms Zaidi said: “We welcome the Chancellor’s support of our three-year campaign on legal tender and for a set of coins on ‘Service to the Nation’.”
She added: “We are ready and keen to work with HM Treasury and Royal Mint officials to ensure the process is as inclusive as possible. Let’s use this set of coins to celebrate the best of Britain.”
The Royal Mint Advisory Committee is working to create a coin featuring Mahatma Gandhi as part of an effort to expand the diversity of those featured on our currency. It is a laudable move. The purpose of public history is to tell the whole story, and that includes perspectives that, in the past, have been overlooked or uncelebrated. The wonder of history is that the more one studies, the more there is to find – and the contribution of black and ethnic minority people to our island’s story has been immense.
One could have chosen the abolitionist Olaudah Equiano; the composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor; nurse Mary Seacole; or Noor Inayat Khan, one of a handful of women to receive the George Cross. But Gandhi is particularly appropriate for his contribution to social progress. It says a lot about Britain that we would commemorate as a national figure a man who did more than anyone to end our empire – but the empire was controversial in its own era too, and out of its ashes has arisen a new British identity rooted as much in values as it is in place and time.
Gandhi of course stands in Parliament Square, not far from Nelson Mandela, a South African – and our school children study Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jnr. What these figures stood for has a universal quality, applicable anywhere, but also something that strikes a chord with Britishness, with its democratic tradition and belief in fair play. The celebration of historical diversity shouldn’t be surrendered to the Left as a permanent guilt-trip or a weapon to use in the culture war. The Tories should embrace it as a celebration of the glorious patchwork of British life.