Preserving history

Sabarmati Ashram is onto a great task – it is getting ready to transcribe and publish over 8,500 letters received by Gandhiji. The aim is to provide us with an insight into the views of people from all walks of life.

We have a huge compilation of some 31,000 letters, editorial, speeches - Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi but all these are letters written by Gandhiji and this new work, will for the first time give us a glimpse into the various responses his letters and writings got during his life time. This is essential to understand his response to them more completely.

These letters will include responses from some of the greats of that time - Romain Rolland, Rabindranath Tagore, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarojini Naidu, Madeleine Slade (Mirabehn) and Esther Faering,.

We need to constantly preserve history because that is our only link to the past – as essential tool to understand the future. Today’s generation of whatsapp and Apple, will they ever get lured to read such literature?