A controversial auction yesterday in New York of personal items belonging to Mahatma Gandhi has resulted in a bizarre outcome.

The items up for auction, “owned by James Otis, a Los Angeles-based pacifist and documentary filmmaker, include Gandhi’s 1910 Zenith pocket watch, steel-rimmed eyeglasses, sandals, and brass bowl and plate.”

The reserve price for the items was $20,000 to $30,000. Before the auction “some (predicted) the collection could sell for 10 times as much”. It actually went for $1.8 million.

That is being attributed to all the controversy surrounding the auction — with the Indian government flailing about to stop the auction — but it seems to actually stem from the determination of India and fervently patriotic Indians to buy back what they consider a part of their national heritage at any cost.

However, that’s hardly the end of the story. Just before the auction, James Otis tried to cancel the auction, announcing “outside the Antiquorum Auctioneers auction house that he had decided not to sell the items in the light of controversy and wanted it back immediately”.

The auction went ahead anyway, but afterwards “the United States Justice Department had asked the auction house to hold the set for two weeks pending a resolution between the owner, James Otis, and the U.S. and Indian governments”.

The backstory is as strange as the outcome.

The Indian government had tried to stop the auction until the last minute, saying India opposed the commercialization of Gandhi’s belongings as it went against the ideas of the statesman.

However, the L.A. Times points out that “Gandhi agreed to sell some of his personal effects during his lifetime to raise money for causes he supported”.

And that’s what Otis seems to be doing, as well:

Otis, who bought the items from the Gandhi family or at auctions, said he chose to sell them now in part because he hoped publicity surrounding the sale would inspire the Obama administration and others to pursue nonviolence.
[...]
Otis … has pledged to give most of the proceeds to groups espousing nonviolence…

In fact, the only party guilty of going “against the ideas of the statesman”, it turns out, was the ham-fisted Indian government.

The collector added that officials at the Indian Consulate in New York threatened to seek a court order for his arrest, give his name to Interpol or bar him from visiting India if he proceeded with the auction. “The implication was if I went [to India] I would be thrown in jail,” he said. “I’m following Gandhi’s footsteps.”

And now that the free market has spoken, it’s not clear whose arm the Justice Department plans to twist in what way to achieve “a resolution between the owner, James Otis, and the U.S. and Indian governments”.

What’s the U.S. government doing anyway in the middle of this dispute? The notion that the U.S. government is a party to the dispute is as bizarre as the Delhi High Court blithely ignoring all considerations of jurisdiction, and issuing an order that the auction be halted.