The government on Tuesday put to rest a long-run controversy by acquiring one of the last manuscripts penned by Mahatma Gandhi that was supposed to go under the hammer in a London auction.
?The Government of India is in possession of the manuscript Mahatma Gandhi had written for his journal Harijan, 19 days before his assassination, pleading for tolerance of Muslims in India,? a senior Indian High Commission official in London said on Tuesday.
Earlier on Tuesday, external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee said, ?There is no need to worry about this great manuscript. It will be available to the country.?
Putting an end to the controversy surrounding the manuscript, Mukherjee said, ?My ministry has decided to bring it back. We have spoken to the people concerned.?
The reserve price of the six-page manuscript of the manuscript was fixed at around ?12,000. Gandhi wrote the piece on January 11.
Christie?s?the London auction house, which had slotted the sale for Tuesday?said the collection?s executors agreed to withdraw the letter from the auction and hand it over to the Indian government. This was done after establishing that the ownership of the manuscript lay with the Ahmedabad-based Navjiwan Trust.
In the handwritten article, Gandhi pleaded for tolerance towards Muslims. He also advocated the importance of Urdu and said any boycott on Urdu script is a wanton affront on the Muslims of the Union.
Mukherjee said India was planning to serve a legal notice on the auction house to stop the sale.
Mukherjee said in 1996, London-based Phillips Sons and Neale stopped the auction after they were served a legal notice by the Indian High Commission that the manuscript was ?stolen property? and the ownership lies with Navjiwan Trust.
The manuscripts reached the auction house after Gandhiji?s typist, V Kalayanam passed it to a temple and gave them permission to sell it to raise money to build a temple in Hawaii.