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 to £700,000 (US$800,000 to US$1.1 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“The vast majority of this is unknown and unpublished, and has not been used by scholars in the last generation or two,” said Gabriel Heaton, a books and manuscripts specialist at Sotheby’s auctioneers which is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 said.
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. 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.”
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 at a British auction in April, while a pair of his glasses fetched £34,000.
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 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 said.
He gifted a large piece of land to his mentor, which he named Tolstoy Farm, in honor of Russian author and philosopher Leo Tolstoy whose ideal of peaceful resistance influenced Gandhi.
Heaton believed Gandhi’s family felt able to speak more freely to Kallenbach than just about anyone else about Gandhi.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese