The Indian Government has asked the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library to bid for it on July 3.

“We have received a communication from the culture ministry to bid for this rare letter of Gandhiji,” a source at the museum told PTI.

The communique from the ministry states the museum should seek “advice of the MEA and the Indian High Commission” to decide how to bid for the letter written by Gandhi for the Harijan on January 11, 1948, 19 days before his assassination. The letter had pleaded for tolerance towards Muslims.

Confirming that the government would make a bid for the letter, Information and Broadcasting Minister P R Dasmunsi said the external affairs ministry has cleared the proposal.

The letter, being auctioned by Christie’s, is estimated to be sold for around 12,000 pounds.

The letter is part of a collection titled “the Albin Schram Collection of Autograph Letters”, a personal and private collection assembled over a period of 30 years by Albin Schram, a Switzerland-based collector.

The collection includes 570 lots of handwritten manuscripts by many notable figures of European history from the 13th to 20 centuries including Napoleon, Winston Churchill, Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde.

Posted: 06|28|07 at 10:48 am. Filed under: UK News.