The Hindu : New Delhi News : Legal brief for missions on Mahatma’s papers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 10, 2007
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New Delhi

Legal brief for missions on Mahatma’s papers

Anita Joshua

NEW DELHI: The Prime Minister’s Office has asked the Culture Ministry to prepare a legal brief for Indian missions abroad to help them deal with possible future auction of Mahatma Gandhi’s papers.

The task of drawing up the “detailed legal brief” has been entrusted with the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) and the Navjivan Trust, Ahmedabad. While the trust — as per Mahatma Gandhi’s will dated February 20, 1940, holds the copyright of all “books, articles etc. that I have written and may write hereafter, whether printed or not printed” — much of the material is held by the NMML because of the facilities it has to maintain ageing documents.

Once the legal brief is drawn up, it will be vetted by the Ministry of Law and Justice. It will then be sent to Indian missions through the Ministry of External Affairs with directions to contest in court any attempt to auction papers of Mahatma Gandhi.

The PMO directive came after two leading auction houses — Christie’s and Sotheby’s — put up Gandhiji’s writings for auction last month in quick succession. While the Christie’s withdrew the manuscript at the 11th hour, two Non-Resident Indians secured the manuscripts that went under the hammer a few days later at the Sotheby’s.

The NRIs are understood to have offered to send the manuscripts back to India.

In the case of Christie’s, the Indian Council for Cultural Relations paid £15,000 upfront for the manuscript and another £3,000 as premium.

The manuscript — a draft editorial note written by Gandhiji for the Harijan magazine 19 days before his assassination, urging tolerance towards Muslims — was to be auctioned as part of the private collection of the late Albin Schram. Christie’s expected its auction to fetch between £9,000 and £12,000.

The auction of the Mahatma’s manuscripts at Sotheby’s escaped India’s attention despite all the hue and cry that was raised over the document that would have gone under the hammer as part of the Albin Schram collection.

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