Another personal letter written by Gandhi in Gujarati to one Mr Kambata has also come back gratis to the Navjivan Trust along with the draft article.
NEW DELHI: The Indian government paid 18,500 pounds to acquire a draft of the article written by Mahatma Gandhi days before his assassination, Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) president Karan Singh said here on Tuesday while handing over the letter to Navajivan Trust.
The seven-page manuscript of the draft article written by Mahatma Gandhi for the Harijan newspaper arguing for preserving Urdu and promoting pluralistic culture was handed over by Karan Singh to Jitendra Desai, managing trustee of Ahamedabad-based Navajivan Trust, the custodian of Gandhi's writings.
Gandhi wrote this article just 19 days before he was shot dead Jan 30, 1948.
Gandhi's draft article was to be auctioned by Christie's but was pulled off at the last minute early this month from going under the hammer after a national outcry led the Indian government to acquire Gandhi's priceless manuscript by paying the Swiss private collector Albin Schram 15,000 pounds and another 3,500 pounds in taxes and commission to the Christie's.
Another personal letter written by Gandhi in Gujarati to one Mr Kambata has also come back gratis to the Navjivan Trust along with the draft article.
Mridula Mukherjee, director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, was also present at the handing over function at Azad Bhavan - home to the ICCR.
The Indian government, which had to resort to hectic diplomacy and deft bargaining after the plan of the British auction house to sell this priceless manuscript of Gandhi became public, appears to have learnt its lessons and plan to evolve a coherent national policy to prevent repeat of such an incident.
Another set of Gandhi's letters which were auctioned by Sotheby's recently will be bought by an NRI and handed over to the Indian government as a gift, Desai said.
In the draft article, Gandhi asks his Muslim friends to support the Urdu edition of his publication, Harijan, which was on the verge of closure due to declining demand.
Pavan K. Varma, director-general of the ICCR, said that the article illuminated Gandhi's "incontrovertible vision to nurture pluralistic society and underlines the elegance and beauty of Urdu language."
Any suggestion of a boycott on Urdu is a "wanton affront upon the Muslims of the Union who in the eyes of many Hindus have become aliens in their own land. This is copying the bad manners of Pakistan with a vengeance," Gandhi writes in this article.
"It is wrong to ruffle Muslim or any other person's feelings...," Gandhi said in the seven-page document.
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