North Dakota has its first statue of Mahatma Gandhi. A life-size figure of the Indian independence leader was unveiled this week in Bismarck's downtown Peace Park, giving the state's Indian American community a new gathering place in the capital city.

Both the American and Indian anthems were sung to open the ceremony. North Dakota school students then sang hymns that Gandhi loved. First Lady Kjersti Armstrong and Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring joined local parks officials and Indian American families for the dedication.

A message that travels

Goehring pointed to closer links between North Dakota and India. He said Gandhi's call for peace speaks to people in the state as much as anywhere else in the world. He described the statue as a lasting symbol of peace and nonviolence.

Armstrong called it an honor to mark Gandhi's legacy and that his message feels more important now than it has in many years.

The timing carried meaning too. October marks Gandhi's birthday on Oct. 2, a date the United Nations marks each year as a global day of nonviolence. This year was his 157th birth anniversary.

A park built for peace

Peace Park sits on East Front Avenue and was created soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It already holds a peace pole from a statewide Gandhi peace group plus several bronze sculptures. The new statue joins them as part of the capital's public art collection.

Members of the state's Indian American community gave technical help to install the statue. India's consulate in Seattle and the North Dakota Trade Office also backed the project.

Part of a growing trail

The Bismarck figure is the latest in a string of Gandhi statues across the Northwest and the northern Plains. Others went up at the foot of Seattle's Space Needle in October 2024, at Nebraska's capitol building that December and on the Missoula campus of the University of Montana in March of this year. Together with a statue outside a Bellevue, Washington, library from 2009, the region now has five.

For Indian American families in a state where their community is small but growing, the statue is a proud new landmark and a reminder that a message of peace can find a home anywhere.