The Hindu : National : Mahatma Gandhi’s note not the only document to go under the hammer

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Monday, Jul 02, 2007
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Mahatma Gandhi’s note not the only document to go under the hammer

Special Correspondent

Series of letters expected to fetch £2,500

NEW DELHI: Mahatma Gandhi’s editorial note, written 19 days before his assassination, is not his only document to go under the hammer at the London auction house, Christie’s, on Tuesday.

A letter by M. K. Gandhi “in a secretarial hand to B.N. Khambatta” dated September 20, 1934, is also due to be auctioned along with the draft of an editorial titled Urdu Harijan as part of the “The Albin Schram Col lection of Autograph Letters.”

The contents of the letter are not known, but this lot includes autograph letters and signatures of the King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm I, dating back to 1728, and Russian military commander and diplomat Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutusov.

Together, this series of letters is expected to fetch up to £2,500.

In the case of Gandhi’s letter, the contents have not been detailed by Christie’s on its website where online bidding is also possible.

As for the draft of Urdu Harijan — which the Government is trying to secure for India in the wake of a demand from some Gandhians that it be brought back to the country — there is a view that since the matter in the manu script has already been incorporated in the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Page 398-399, Volume 90), there was no need to bid for it as is being considered.

“Gandhians like Anupam Mishra feel that the moment we get into purchasing this manuscript, thousands of letters will spill out of people’s cupboards as Gandhi wrote to practically everyone he came in touch with or wrote to him. Gandhi’s letters could overnight turn into blank cheques waiting to be encashed,” Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti Director Savita Singh told The Hindu.

The former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, L.M. Singhvi, has warned potential foreign buyers that the draft editorial note could be stolen property.

In a statement, he said the question of title is crucial; not just for potential individual buyers, but India also because the country may end up coughing up the estimated £12,000 it is expected to fetch for something that already belongs to Harijan or ‘Navjeevan Trust’ which holds the rights to Gandhi’s papers.

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