By Indo-Asian News Service
New Delhi, June 28 (IANS) The Indian government has launched all out efforts to acquire a rare letter Mahatma Gandhi wrote 19 days before his 1948 assassination which is up for auction in London next week.
The external affairs ministry has asked the Indian high commission in London to assist the culture ministry in attempts to get hold of the letter.
“The high commission has been asked to assist the culture ministry in acquiring the letter. It will do its best to assist them,” sources in the external affairs ministry told IANS.
“We are doing all we can,” said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
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 Indian government has a choice of either participating in the auction at Christie’s in London July 3 or to negotiate with officials at the auction house.
The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library has been asked by the culture ministry to bid for Gandhi’s autographed letter, other sources said.
The letter, if the auction goes through, is likely to fetch Christie’s $24,000.
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.