By Prasun Sonwalkar, IANS
London/New Delhi : In a last-minute face-saver, the Indian government appears to have struck a deal with the owners of a rare letter written by Mahatma Gandhi days before his assassination, with Christie's withdrawing the letter, scheduled to be auctioned Tuesday.
A spokesman of the auction house told IANS that the executors of Albin Schram have agreed to withdraw the Gandhi manuscript from the auction in order for it to be acquired by the Indian government.
Dr. Amin Jaffer, International Director of Asian Art at Christie's, said: "We are pleased to have facilitated the negotiations which have resulted in an important historical record returning to India."
The auction house had described the Gandhi letters scheduled for auction as: "GANDHI, Mohandas K. (1869-1948). Autograph manuscript signed ('M.K. Gandhi'), n.p., 11 January 1948, a draft of an article, 'Urdu Harijan', with a number of emendations and cancellations, 7 pages, 8vo (numbered in autograph), on versos of paper bearing a typed memorandum addressed to Gandhi on the subject of food distribution (staple tears to upper left corners)".
The decision to withdraw the Gandhi letters comes after several meetings between various ministries of the Indian government, including the Ministry of Culture, the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Ministry of External Affairs and the Indian high commission here.
The external affairs ministry had asked the Indian high commission in London to assist the culture ministry in attempts to get hold of the letter written by Mahatma Gandhi 19 days before his 1948 assassination.
In the Jan 11, 1948 letter written for the "Harijan" newspaper, which he edited, Gandhi makes an emotive appeal for tolerance towards Muslims.
"My view remains unalterable especially at this critical juncture in our history. It is wrong to ruffle Muslim or any other person's feeling when there is no question of ethics," Gandhi wrote, just 19 days before Nathuram Godse shot him dead.
The Prime Minister's Office wrote to the culture ministry to acquire the letter after two Gandhians, Basant Kumar Birla and Satya Paul, brought to the notice of the government news of the proposed auction.
The rare letter is part of a collection titled "the Albin Schram Collection of Autograph Letters", a personal collection by Albin Schram, a Switzerland-based collector. It also includes some of the greatest letters written by legends like Napoleon, Winston Churchill, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde.