Article at Christie’s is not Gandhi’s last work: Aide

Mahatma penned last letter on Jan 29, 1948, says secy

CHENNAI: Mahatma Gandhi’s last piece of writing was penned a day before he was assassinated, and not on 11 January, 1948, as London’s auction house Christie’s claims, said Gandhi’s former secretary V Kalyanam.

The document that represents Gandhi’s last act of authorship was written on 29 January, 1948, and addressed to one Sankaran, according to Sankaran’s Chennai-based grandnephew K Murali. Kalyanam said he was with Gandhi when the letter was written, an assertion that endorses Murali’s claim. Sankaran, who had served as an administrator at the Wardha ashram, had lost his daughter Sulochana and Gandhi offered his condolence in the letter.  
 
In other words, the handwritten draft of the article dealing with Urdu and Hindu-Muslim relations, which will be auctioned by Christie’s on 3 July, 2007,  was neither Gandhi’s last letter nor his last article as it is being made out to be, Kalyanam, 87, said.

He also said he remembered Gandhi writing a piece on January 27, 1948.  “It was an article on the Congress party and was published in Harijan and a few other papers. It was written only three days before he was assassinated. But probably nobody knew about it.”

A copy of Gandhi's letter to Sankaran was published in a little-known book titled Mahatma Gandhi - Pictorial History Of A Great Life, edited by Jan Baros and published by Czechoslovac Society, Calcutta, in 1948. The original, however, is missing. The letter's musings on death almost seem to suggest that Gandhi had a premonition of what was to happen the next day.

“What can I write to you? What comfort can I give,” he wrote. “Death is a true friend. It is only our ignorance that causes us grief. Sulochana's spirit was yesterday, is today, will remain tomorrow. The body, of course, must die,”

Gandhi wrote. The only traceable copy of the book that has reproduced the letter is with Murali, a 67-year-old retired mechanical engineer.

Kalyanam said the letter to Sankaran was Bapu's last. “I was with Bapu when he wrote the letter on January 29. He did not write another letter after that,” Kalyanam said.

“Since I was dealing only with his letters and writings in English, I did not track this one, written in Hindi. Nobody knows where the original is.”

Murali said the letter in Christie's possession should be treated as stolen property. “Navjivan Trust is the designated custodian of Gandhi's writings. Indian government should approach the Interpol to apprehend whoever stole this letter and passed it on to the auction house,” he said.