Mahatma Gandhi article to be sold to India

LONDON, July 2 (Reuters) The draft of an article penned by Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi days before his 1948 assassination has been withdrawn from auction and will be sold to the Indian government, Christie's auctioneers said today.

The article, due to have gone on sale on Tuesday in London, is signed ''M. K. Gandhi'' and dated 11, January, 1948 -- just 19 days before Gandhi was shot dead by a Hindu fanatic.

It had been priced at between 9,000 and 12,000 pounds (18,000-24,100 dollars).

Intended for publication in Gandhi's mouthpiece Harijan, it laments the fact that the magazine was being forced out of publication in the Urdu language because of declining demand.

Gandhi saw this as a deliberate slight to Muslims at a time when the forced partition of India at Independence from Britain was still a violently divisive issue.

''My view remains unalterable especially at this critical juncture in our history. It is wrong to ruffle Muslim or any other person's feeling when there is no question of ethics,'' Gandhi wrote.

He urged the advantages of learning Urdu script. ''The limitations of this script in terms of perfection are many. But for elegance and grace it will equal any script in the world.'' He considered the potential of Urdu for shorthand, and for the transcription of verses in Sanskrit. Any suggestion of a boycott on Urdu script was a ''wanton affront upon the Muslims of the Union who in the eyes of many Hindus have become aliens in their own land.

''This is copying the bad manners of Pakistan with a vengeance'', he wrote.

Gandhi's article ends with a call to ''Muslim friends'' not only to support the Urdu edition but to learn the Nagari script and thus ''enrich their intellectual capital''.

''We are pleased to have facilitated the negotiations which have resulted in an important historical record returning to India,'' said Amin Jaffer, International Director of Asian Art at Christie's.

Reutrs RKM GC2354