India today admitted helping a businessman in his successful €1.3 million bid for Mahatma Gandhi’s spectacles and other personal possessions.
Toni Bedi, an executive of the Indian company UB Group, made the winning bid in New York after a furious four minutes in which the offers raced up from $10,000.
“I’m very happy to inform you ... that the Indian government has successfully procured the personal items gifted by the father of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi. We have been able to procure them through the services of an Indian who was in touch with us,” Minister for Culture Ambika Soni said today.
The independence leader is often respectfully called “Mahatama” or “great soul”.
She refused to say if the government provided any money in the bid, saying only that it had worked with the Indian company.
India had initially protested over the auction, saying Gandhi’s belongings - wire-rim glasses, worn leather sandals, a pocket watch, a plate and the brass bowl from which he ate his final meal - should be returned to India, not sold to the highest bidder.
Before the sale Ms Soni said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had instructed her not to let a third party buy the items. She criticised the auction as “crass commercialisation” and said India would “offer what ever it takes to make sure these things come back to Gandhi’s motherland.”
Mr Bedi said his company would donate the items to the Indian government to be displayed in New Delhi.
The Indian statement cleared up earlier confusion after the man who owned the items said he no longer wanted to sell them, and US Justice Department officials served an Indian court injunction on the auction house, blocking it from releasing Gandhi’s belongings.
A New Delhi High Court last week issued the injunction against the auction or sale of Gandhi’s effects, following a petition by a public trust started by Gandhi in 1929, staking its claim over all his personal items.
The auction went ahead but auctioneer Julien Schaerer announced as the sale began that the Gandhi items would be held for two weeks “pending resolution of third party claims.” Ms Soni said the injunction had prevented the government from bidding directly.
Gandhi, who advocated non-violent civil disobedience to resist British rule in India, died in 1948 after being shot by a Hindu radical.
AP