Mohandas K. Gandhi Signed Document.

GANDHI, Mohandas K.

$650,000.00

Item Number: 132138

Early 20th century South African government document containing the fingerprints of Mohandas K. Gandhi, signed and inscribed by him, “This is what I gave voluntarily at the risk of my life to keep my promise to the Government. Phoenix, Natal, 15th February 1909, M.K. Gandhi.” In April 1893, Gandhi aged 23, set sail for South Africa to practice law in the colony of Natal, which, like India was part of the British Empire. The racial discrimination he experienced in his first year of residence inspired him to found the Natal Indian Congress which opposed several proposed discriminatory legislations and molded the Indian community of South Africa into a unified political force. One of the NIC’s notable efforts was organizing public resistance to the South African government’s mandatory fingerprinting of Indian South African residents in 1907 and 1908. Gandhi was repeatedly arrested and imprisoned for refusing to submit to fingerprinting, both of himself and other Indians. In October 1908, during a trip to the Transvaal, Gandhi refused to produce a registration certificate or other means of identity to officials at the Natal-Transvaal border, and was charged under section 9 of the Asiatic Registration Amendment Act, a law which had only been in force since September 21st 1908. Gandhi used his appearance in court to explain his reasons for leading resistance to the Asiatic Registration Act and the related Asiatic Registration Amendment Act. He was sentenced to two months in prison, but was released when he agreed to the voluntary registration recorded in the present document. Matted and framed. An exceptionally rare piece of history from Gandhi’s formative years as a nonviolent activist, the only known example of Mahatma Gandhi’s fingerprints.

Born on October 2, 1869, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was trained in law at the Inner Temple, London, and called to the bar at age 22. He moved to South Africa in 1893 where resided for 21 years and adopted his still evolving methodology of Satyagraha (devotion to the truth), or nonviolent protest, for the first time in the wake of the Boer War. In 1915, Gandhi returned to India with an international reputation as a leading Indian nationalist, theorist and community organizer. He joined the Indian National Congress, assuming leadership in 1921 and led nationwide campaigns to ease poverty, expand women’s rights, and, above all, achieve Indian independence from British rule. In the wake of World War II, Gandhi opposed providing any help to the British war effort and campaigned against any Indian participation in the war. As the war progressed, Gandhi intensified his demand for independence, calling for the British to Quit India in a 1942 speech in Mumbai, hours after which he was arrested by the British government. Gandhi’s imprisonment lasted two years, although he was initially sentenced to six. He was released in May of 1944 due to failing health. Following the end of WWII, the new British government passed the Indian Independence Act of 1947, partitioning the British Indian Empire was into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out, especially in the Punjab and Bengal. Eschewing the official celebration of independence in Delhi, Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to provide solace. In the months following, he undertook several fasts unto death to stop religious violence. In 1948, Gandhi was assassinated on his way to a prayer meeting in the Birla House garden. His death was mourned nationwide; over two million people joined the five-mile long funeral procession in his honor.