Date:28/06/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/06/28/stories/2007062856100100.htm

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India to bid for Gandhi’s letter

Anita Joshua

NEW DELHI: The Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML) has been asked by the Union Ministry of Culture to bid for Mahatma Gandhi’s autographed manuscript written 19 days before his assassination.

The manuscript — draft of an article titled ‘Urdu Harijan’ — is due to be auctioned by Christie’s on July 3, and is estimated to fetch a maximum of £12,000.

A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting on Tuesday after the Prime Minister’s Office — responding to requests from a section of Gandhians to secure the manuscript for India — asked the Culture Ministry to explore the possibilities of getting it back to the country.

Though online bidding was considered, the Ministry decided instead to write to the Indian High Commission in London to communicate to the auction house India’s intent to bid for the manuscript that was among the cache of historic letters and documents in the collection left behind by “voracious collector of letters,” late Albin Schram.

Back channel efforts were also made to see if the document could be prevented from going under the hammer but this was ruled out by the auction house.

While Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti (GSDS) was also considered a potential bidder, NMML was settled upon as it had the facilities to preserve such manuscripts and also convert them into micro-film.

As it is, the NMML is the custodian of a bulk of Mahatma Gandhi’s writings.