Singh bought the original manuscripts for 45,600 pounds and handed them to the ‘Indian nation’ at a function held on Monday evening at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), which became its official recipients. The manuscripts, which include a series of articles, postcards and letters by Gandhi, were received by Dr Karan Singh, Chairman of the Executive Council, NMML. Also present at the occasion were Anand Sharma, Minister of State for External Affairs and Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee, Mahatma Gandhi’s granddaughter.

“I dedicate the manuscripts to my grandfather Shri Pakhar Singh. He went as an unlettered worker to Somerset, England, way back in 1932. The first brown man people had ever seen in the area, he cut quite a funny figure selling his wares from village to village out of a suitcase on a bicycle. An ardent Gandhi follower, he believed and emulated Gandhiji’s principles of self-reliance and truth in the face of adversity and non-violence,” Singh said.

The manuscripts written between the 1920s and 1940s, include a series of articles for Young India discussing a range of political and cultural issues. “There are several letters — the most significant one is a note by Gandhi written around May 1921, during the peak of the Non-Cooperation Movement. He had recorded his impressions after a tour of Maharashtra in the note which covers issues as diverse as untouchability, the English language and also contains a critique on an impending land-acquisition issue by the Tata group, quite similar to the recent SEZ debate,” explained Professor Mridula Mukherjee, Director, NMML. The manuscripts also have many of Gandhi’s letters in their original envelopes, to Congress activist Badrul Hassan and academician Dr Jafar Hassan.