LS signed “MK Gandhi,” one page both sides, 4.5 x 6.75, March 29, 1946. Addressed from "Seragram via Wardha C.P.," a letter to John Haynes Holmes of the Community Church of New York, in full: "Mr. & Mrs. Kodanda Rao are my friends of long standing. I have no doubt you have heard of the Servants of India Society founded by the late G. K. Gokhale of whom you will learn everything from these friends. Will you please introduce them to American friends & otherwise help them to the best of your ability?” In fine condition.
The Servants of India Society was founded by Gopal Krishna Gokhale in 1905 to unite and train Indians of different ethnicities and religions in welfare work. It was the first secular organization in that country to devote itself to the underprivileged, rural and tribal people, emergency relief work, the increase of literacy, and other social causes. In 1915 Gokhale was succeeded as president by prominent Moderate politician V. S. Srinivasa Sastri, a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi and the referenced Pandurangi Kodanda Ra, an Indian writer, scholar, and missionary, who authored the 1973 book Foreign Friends of Indian Freedom. Sastri died less than three weeks after this letter was written.
Gandhi was a revered political leader and activist (1869-1948) whose efforts on behalf of Indian independence through nonviolent means made him the most influential figure in the history of modern India. After studying law in England, Gandhi spent several years in South Africa defending the rights of immigrants. Upon his return to his native country he became the leader of the Indian National Congress and embarked on a decades-long crusade for Indian independence, demonstrating and urging nonviolence and civil disobedience as the most effective means of achieving this goal. His public acts of defiance resulted in repeated incarceration and brought him to international attention. In 1947, a year after writing the present letter, he participated in the postwar negotiations that led to Indian independence; in the following year, he was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic.
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