MEMBERS....
The crowd hold up a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi and sing during the second day
of the first test cricket match between Australia and India in Mohali October
2, 2010.
LONDON : A huge archive of
letters, papers and photographs that shed new light on Indian leader Mahatma
Gandhi and his time in South Africa will be auctioned in London next month and
is expected to fetch 500,000-700,000 pounds (RM2.5-3.5 million).
The documents, numbering
several thousand and arranged in 18 files, belonged to Hermann Kallenbach, who
became arguably Gandhi's closest friend after they met in Johannesburg in 1904.
Although relatively few are
in Gandhi's own hand, the wealth of material from family, friends, associates
and Kallenbach himself make the collection a key biographical source for one of
the 20th century's most revered figures.
"The vast majority of
this is unknown and unpublished, and has not been used by scholars in the last
generation or two," said Gabriel Heaton, a books and manuscripts
specialist at Sotheby's auctioneers which is selling the archive.
"It is very much
material that will be adding to our sum knowledge of Gandhi and his life,"
he told Reuters.
The documents will go under
the hammer as a single lot on July 10 at the English Literature and History
sale.
Sotheby's also handled the
sale in 1986 of the main series of Gandhi's letters to Kallenbach, when they
raised 140,000 pounds. Together, the two batches represent the vast majority of
the Kallenbach family's Gandhi collection.
"He is one of the
towering figures of the 20th century," said Heaton, when asked to explain
Gandhi's appeal to collectors and historians.
"There is only a tiny
handful of individuals who have had such an enormous effect on world history
... Unlike most other comparable figures he never had an army at his disposal,
which makes him unique in that way."
Huge appetite at auctions
The appetite for Gandhi
memorabilia has shown few signs of abating over time.
In one of the more bizarre
sales in recent years, samples of soil and blades of bloody grass purportedly
from the spot where Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 sold for 10,000 pounds at a
British auction in April, while a pair of his glasses fetched 34,000 pounds.
Kallenbach met Gandhi in
1904 in South Africa, where the Indian leader spent more than 20 years of his
life before returning to India permanently in 1915.
Gandhi's time in Africa,
ostensibly as a lawyer, had a profound influence on his thinking as he joined
the struggle to obtain basic rights for Indians living there.
Kallenbach, a German-born
Jewish South African, was an architect who fell under the influence of Gandhi
and his ideas, and the two men became lifelong friends.
"So many of the letters
refer to the importance of this relationship and how Kallenbach was able to
support Gandhi in a way few others could," Heaton explained.
He gifted a large piece of
land to his mentor which he named Tolstoy Farm, in honour of Russian author and
philosopher Leo Tolstoy whose ideal of peaceful resistance influenced Gandhi.
Among the most illuminating
of the documents on sale are the dozens of letters written by Gandhi's sons
which provide details of Gandhi's life in India, particularly after his return
when he lived in relative obscurity.
"Father is becoming
more and more awful," read one incomplete letter probably written by
Harilal, his eldest.
"It would not be
strange if a time may come one of these days when either those who are living
with Father might have to go or he might leave us all not being able to stand
our life."
Heaton believed Gandhi's
family felt able to speak more freely to Kallenbach than just about anyone
else.
"They are writing to
someone who's essentially a close family friend and also someone they knew
understood their father as a man and not just a political head." (Reuters)
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