Gandhi’s letters are a national treasure
Pulkit Vasudha
Ahmeadbad, July 4: In the wake of the controversy surrounding the sale of Mahatma Gandhi’s letter, which is considered by many to be a national heritage, there seems to be renewed efforts to trace anything and everything written by Gandhi.
The chief trustee of the Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust (SAPMT), Amrut Modi said, “We are planning to appeal to the public to give us the original letters, articles and notes written by Gandhi.”
The manuscript of Gandhi’s handwritten letter would have gone under the hammer at Christie’s in London last week had not the Indian government intervened and proposed to bring it back to the country. The one-page letter was expected to fetch at least £12,000.
Among the prized possessions of the princely states of Rajkot and Bhopal are letters from Gandhi to the h of these states. At least, two of these letters are now in the district archives of these two cities.
However, it appears that there are still documents written or signed by Gandhi, which have not yet been published. “There are two letters written by Gandhi, which are lying in the district archives in Gujarat. There is no way for the public to know what these letters are or how to access ,” said Modi who has read the letters.
“People have now realised the monetary value of Gandhi’s letters. Many individuals would rather keep the letters as a material possession than hand it over to the governmental archives for preservation and reference. For the proper preservation of these valuable documents, they should be donated to the National Archives of India.”
Modi, who by chance found the letters seven years ago, said, “Gandhi wrote to Maharajah Sehej Rao of Baroda while he was still in South Africa and fighting against racial discrimination. He had met several people from Baroda in South Africa, who were victims of apartheid. In the other letter, he appealed to the Maharajah of Rajkot to address the grievances of Tranba, a village about 8 kms from Baroda.”
Jitendra Desai, chairman of the Navjeevan Trust, which has published several letters and articles written by Gandhi, said, “I am planning to frame a proposal to request all the district divisional archives to submit Gandhi’s documents to the state archives, from where they can be forwarded to the National Archives of India or the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.”
Gandhi wrote a staggering number of letters during his lifetime. After his assassination in 1948, the idea of publishing his collected works was conceived in 1951. Subsequently, there was a public appeal to give any letters or works to the Gandhi Ashram and its collection centres in Ahmedabad, Patna, Kolkata, Mumbai, Madurai and Delhi. Over the next 35 years, all the letters were compiled in 100 volumes of the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi.
“Since 1951, whenever we have received any document written by Gandhi, we have kept a copy and sent it to the National Archives of India in New Delhi. The flow of these documents has substantially reduced since 1990. Whereas earlier, people used to voluntarily give us their documents, now we have to request them for it,” said Modi.
“People have now realised the monetary value of Gandhi’s letters. Many individuals would rather keep the letters as a material possession than hand it over to the archives. For the proper preservation of these valuable documents, they should be donated to the National Archives of India,” he adds.
“Archives are meant for the reference of the future generations. What purpose can it serve if kept under the lock and key,” said Desai.
Source: Indian Express