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A BLESSING WRITTEN WITH BA’S PEN: Gandhi’s Presentation Postcard to Anand Hingorani

This historically significant inscribed photograph depicts Mahatma Gandhi alongside Kasturba Gandhi–affectionately known as "Ba". Their lifelong partnership formed one of the emotional, spiritual, and ideological foundations of the Gandhian movement. Far more than a domestic companion, Kasturba Gandhi occupied a central place within India’s struggle... A BLESSING WRITTEN WITH BA’S PEN: Gandhi’s Presentation Postcard to Anand Hingorani

This historically significant inscribed photograph depicts Mahatma Gandhi alongside Kasturba Gandhi–affectionately known as "Ba". Their lifelong partnership formed one of the emotional, spiritual, and ideological foundations of the Gandhian movement. Far more than a domestic companion, Kasturba Gandhi occupied a central place within India’s struggle for independence, participating in civil disobedience campaigns, prison protests, women’s reform initiatives, and the disciplined communal life that shaped Gandhi’s political and moral philosophy.

Photographs of Gandhi together with Kasturba remain among the most evocative visual records of the nationalist movement, embodying ideals of sacrifice, simplicity, endurance, and shared conviction. The present lot is particularly notable for its intimacy and emotional restraint, presenting the couple not as distant political icons but as lifelong companions united through decades of hardship, imprisonment, reform, and public service.

The postcard bears the inscription in Gandhi’s hand at the lower right: “Bapu ke Ashirvad” (“Blessings from Bapu”), dated in Hindi numerals "22/2/1945". The date carries profound emotional significance, falling almost exactly one year after Kasturba Gandhi’s death on 22 February 1944 while imprisoned alongside Gandhi at the Aga Khan Palace in Poona during the Quit India period. Within this context, the inscription assumes the character not merely of a presentation dedication but of a deeply personal memorial gesture.

The historical importance of the photograph is substantially reinforced by accompanying documentary evidence preserved within the Gandhi–Hingorani correspondence archive and published in Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 85, Letter No. 695, p. 411. In the note dated Sevagram, 22 February 1945, Gandhi explicitly states: “This pen belongs to Ba.” Anand T Hingorani’s accompanying annotation records that Gandhi selected several pens before ultimately autographing the photograph using one belonging to Kasturba Gandhi.

The act of writing “Bapu ke Ashirvad” using Ba’s pen scarcely one year after her death preserves, in both physical and symbolic form, Kasturba Gandhi’s continuing presence within Gandhi’s daily emotional and spiritual world. Few surviving Gandhian presentation objects retain such intimate documentary immediacy.

The photograph was presented to Anand T Hingorani, noted Gandhian activist, participant in the Dandi March, and later editor associated with Harijan, Gandhi’s influential weekly publication. Preserved within the Hingorani family by descent alongside an extensive archive of correspondence, devotional objects, and Gandhian publications, the work forms part of one of the most important privately preserved Gandhian family archives to emerge in recent decades.

This lot will be shipped in "as is" condition. For further details, please refer to the images of individual lots as a reference for the condition of each lot.

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