Gandhiji's belongings auctioned, writer to return Padma Sri

Kanpur, Apr 10: Noted Hindi writer Giriraj Kishore has threatened to return his 2007 Padma Sri and go on fast if government fails to stop next month's auction of Mahatma Gandhi's belongings and the blade of grass containing a drop of his blood following his assassination in January, 1948.

Kishore, who chronicled Gandhiji's struggles in South Africa in his book "Pahla Girmitiya" (The First Indentured Labour), has written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urging him to take steps to stop the items from going under the hammers in London on April 17.

"Gandhiji is the Father of the Nation and everything related to him belongs to the nation whether it is his glasses, his spinning wheel or the blade of grass on which his blood fell when he was hit by the bullets. How is it that our national heritage is auctioned off in foreign countries and we are unable to stop it? There should be a law to prevent it. We can't even protect his blood? It is shameful for us to be silent on this matter," Kishore wrote his in his April 5 letter to the PM.

The writer says he is yet to receive a reply and said he will go on a fast if the auction is not stopped.

PTI