Vietnam's fresh appeal for Ho Chi Minh's statue in Delhi

Vietnam has given a fresh push to its proposal to India to erect a statue of its former Prime Minister Ho Chi Minh in New Delhi, saying the Communist revolutionary leader was a "great friend" of Indian people and it will be an "excellent symbol" of Indo-Vietnam friendship.
"We expect that the government of India will accept our proposal to erect a statue of Ho Chi Minh in Delhi. He was father of Vietnamese people and a great friend of Indian people. And, also father of Indo-Vietnam relations together with Jawaharlal Nehru. The statue will be an excellent symbol of our friendship," Vietnam Ambassador to India Ton Sinh Thanh said.

The Ambassador was speaking yesterday at the opening of two-day-long international seminar on 'Indo-Vietnam Cultural Relations: Retrospect and Prospect' organised by ICCR here.
"The proposal has been floating for the last couple of years and since we have a statue of Nehru installed in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City, we thought Delhi could also have it, to signify the friendship between the two leaders and the bond they forged between the two countries," Thanh told PTI.
"We also have a park in Hanoi named after former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and a bust is also installed in the centre.

"We would love to have Minh's bust installed in the Nehru Park given their historic ties, or somewhere else in the heart of the city as it is in Kolkata," he said.

A bust of the former Vietnamese Prime Minister was installed at a main street intersection in Kolkata in 1990 by the Indo-Vietnam Solidarity Committee (West Bengal Chapter) to mark Minh's birth centenary.
The Harrington Street was also rechristened to Ho Chi Minh Sarani in his honour.
Sources in the Ministry of External Affairs said the MEA is fine with the proposal and would like to facilitate it, but eventually the decision is to be taken by Urban Development Ministry and the civic bodies.

"The MEA is ok with the proposal but the decision to get a statue installed in the city will ultimately hinge on the Urban Development Ministry and the municipal body concerned.
"But, having said that, one has to see the rules, a lot of which have changed, that is whether such things can be done anymore or not," a source said.
The Ambassador also said, "We welcome Indian cultural centre in Hanoi, and we hope there will be a Vietnam cultural centre in New Delhi in the future."
"India and Vietnam, besides thousands of years of cultural linkages, also share same anti-colonial struggle history and the current environment, I would say is more favourable for greater cultural cooperation," Thanh said.

Nehru had visited Vietnam in 1954, and Minh came on a state visit to India in February 1958, when the two shared a warm hug that continues to represent the cordial ties between the two countries.
Delhi already has a Ho Chi Minh Road near Nehru Place.
ICCR has also put up an exhibition of rare pictures of Nehru and Minh, and of temples bearing Indian architecture and few of Rabindranath Tagore's works translated to Vietnamese on the occasion.