Indian offer for Gandhi items derisory, says Otis

Los Angeles-based documentary maker James Otis, who is preparing to auction the Gandhi memorabilia owned by him tomorrow, said he had received an e-mailed offer from India's New York consulate to buy the seven items, but said the offer is too low to consider. He called the offer "generous but small", but declined to give specifics.

Otis, 45 who is also a peace activist, said the offer "it financially so small that I would not like to repeat it''. But he has agreed to meet Indian officials today in the company of Lester Kurtz, a professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

Otis, an avid collector of Gandhi memorabilia, has for the past decade been working with Kurtz, a leading scholar on Gandhi on three projects, including a four-hour television documentary titled Peaceful Warriors-A History of Non-violence.

But as of now the auction of Mahatma Gandhi's Zenith pocket watch, steel-rimmed spectacles, a pair of sandals and an eating bowl and plate would go ahead as scheduled in New York on Thursday. The collection has a reserve price of between $20,000 and $30,000.

The New York auction house, Antiquorum Auctioneers, with whom Otis has signed a contract to sell the items, too said the "auction is going ahead tomorrow'' despite an interim stay by the Delhi High Court.

Earlier, before he was contacted by Indian officials, Otis had indicated he would be happy to negotiate some kind of solution that might satisfy both parties.
"I have a contract with the auction house to sell these items, but as you know you can make a deal prior the auction. I would be very happy to welcome any serious offers from the Indian government and it might not even have to be financial," he said.

"There are things they could offer in terms of helping the people of India that I would more than welcome, for example improving health care for the poorest Indians in exchange for the items."

"The Indian government is under pressure from various quarters, not least Gandhi's great-grandson Tushar Gandhi, to buy the articles and repatriate them. Tushar Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi's grandson, called the planned auction reprehensible and has been trying to raise money to buy the collection without government help"