M.K. Gandhi | Letter signed, to William Pearson, praising his actions in support of swaraj, c.1918

Mohandas K. Gandhi.

Letter signed (“M.K. Gandhi”), to William Winstanley Pearson, praising the work of a fellow satyagrahi, reflecting on Pearson's recent arrest for his work in support of swaraj and celebrating its ultimate benign consequences (“…You are now having work that is entirely congenial to you and you have become an angel of mercy to so many hundreds of men. I know that they would have genuine kindness from you and all that you are experiencing there would be of inestimable purpose to you at Shantiniketan…”), the body of the text in the hand of Mahadev Desai, 2 pages, 4to (215 x 167mm), the Ashram, Sabarmati, 30 October [?1918], neat repairs at margins, paper worn where inkstamps have been ineffectively rubbed off 

“…For months past I have intended to write to you. But as I wanted to write to you a long love letter and as I had not the leisure for it, I put off writing…”

AN EXTRAORDINARY LETTER TO THE MAN DESCRIBED IN HIS OBITUARY AS “THE BEST LOVED ENGLISHMAN IN INDIA”. William Winstanley Pearson (1881-1923) had first gone to India as a missionary. He befriended Charles Freer Andrews in Delhi and, like Andrews (who was a close friend of Gandhi), became an advocate for Indian freedom. By 1914 Pearson had come under the influence of Rabindranath Tagore and was working at Tagore’s Santiniketan school. He also became an early and passionate advocate for Gandhi’s struggle for civil rights.

The current letter was presumably written after Pearson published For India (1917), which was fiercely critical of the Indian government. The book was banned and the following year Pearson was arrested and deported to England, where he was recruited for the Royal Army Medical Corps. This letter, in which Gandhi congratulates Pearson on working as an “angel of mercy” probably dates from this time. Gandhi himself has volunteered as a stretcher-bearer for the British during the Boer War, so his sympathetic attitude to non-violent war-work would not be out of character. This early letter provides a fascinating insight into the spiritual dimension of satyagraha and Gandhi's trust in providence: Gandhi’s assurance that Pearson “fully deserved” the punishment meted out by the Indian government, but that this punishment itself had brought benefit to Pearson, reflects his deeply held belief that violent oppression would ultimately prove ineffective in suppressing a righteous cause.

PROVENANCE

Dr Max Thorold (ink stamp); Sale in our New York rooms, 14 December 1988, lot 113