Gandhi Memorabilia to Return to India

Industrialist Buys Items at Auction for $1.8 Million, Vows to Send Them to New Delhi

NEW DELHI, March 5 -- The wire-rimmed spectacles, pocket watch and other personal possessions of India's greatest independence movement leader, Mohandas K. Gandhi, were sold Thursday at a controversial New York auction to an Indian industrialist, who said he would donate the items to India's government.

Vijay Mallya, a flamboyant businessman who owns a beer company, an international airline and a cricket team, bought the items for $1.8 million.

The opportunity to bid for Gandhi's distinctive round spectacles, leather sandals, pocket watch and a brass bowl and plate was rare because the austere leader had very few possessions. News of the auction had outraged Indian officials, who pledged to either stall it or recover the items by bidding.

"I am a proud Indian. Gandhi-ji is the father of our nation, the nation that has made me who I am today, so I felt a sense of responsibility," said Mallya, the 54-year-old owner of the United Breweries Group and Kingfisher Airlines, using an honorific. "This will be my gift to the government of India."

Mallya, who spoke from Europe, said that he bid by phone through an associate on the auction floor but that no one from the Indian government had contacted him about doing so. Bidding in the auction, which was conducted by Antiquorum Auctioneers, started at $30,000.

Gandhi remains the world's most renowned preacher of nonviolence. His philosophy empowered millions of Indians to bring an end to more than 200 years of British colonial rule. Many Indians had expressed anger that the auction appeared to defy his teachings against the pursuit of materialism.

About 40 minutes before the auction began, James Otis, the owner of the memorabilia, told reporters he wanted to withdraw the items.

"I never intended for my actions to cause such controversy," Otis said, "and I pray the outcome is positive and one that Gandhi would have approved of."

His spokesperson in New York said Otis had received several death threats by e-mail in the past few days.

Otis said he may begin a 23-day fast, emulating Gandhi's practice, to meditate on the issues that have arisen in the past few days.

On Tuesday, a court in New Delhi ordered an interim stay on the auction after members of a trust argued that the items could not be sold because they belonged to India and were removed illegally. Gandhi had willed his personal belongings and writings to the Navjivan Trust in 1940.

Earlier this week, Otis, a pacifist, had publicly offered to withdraw the articles from sale if India agreed to either spend more on health care for the poor or support educational events to promote nonviolent resistance.

In New Delhi, a statement from India's Foreign Ministry said the government did not want to "commercialize and demean" the memory of Gandhi and was "in touch with the person who is putting some of these items up for auction."

Ambika Soni, India's tourism and culture minister, said, "The bottom line is to procure the memorabilia." As a backup plan, a group of Indian Americans led by the New York-based hotelier Sant Singh Chatwal was ready to bid for the items and return them to the Indian government.

No one had speculated that Mallya was interested.

"If the auction of Gandhi's personal items was going to take place, I was not going to miss it," Mallya said Thursday. "But the bidding was, my God, very aggressive. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that the price would go from 30,000 dollars to 1.8 million. These objects are destined for New Delhi."