[Gandhi, Mohandas K.] | The independence leader gifts a symbol of resistance

[Gandhi, Mohandas K.]

A portable spinning wheel, given by Gandhi to Mariam and Lilabati Ghose, ca. February 1932

Indian teak box (approx. 230 x 910 x 40 mm when fully opened), hollow metal handle; string and thread lacking, a few minor cracks to wood, some wear and rust, lacking one screw at metal closure, but wheels rotate smoothly.

Gandhi's presentation gift of one of the most important symbols of the Indian independence movement.

Mariam and Lilabati were the daughters of Sailendra Nath Ghose, then the president of the India National Congress of America. At the ages of 7 and 4, respectively, the girls sailed on the Europa to greet Gandhi in London, while he attended the second Round Table Conference, and presented him with messages from sympathizers in Boston, Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore, along with a personal invitation to visit the United States. Traveling with their mother, as their father was denied a British passport, they traveled in third class—"keeping with the spirit of a mission to the ascetic Indian leader," a New York Times article about the voyage quipped—and were eager to see Gandhi in person (15 October 1931). Their hopes, however, were soon quashed; while Gandhi agreed to meet the girls and smiled upon reading the invitations, he declined, explaining, "America is not ready to receive me" (23 October 1931).

But Gandhi promised the girls a gift, and in early 1932, the girls received the present charkha, or spinning wheel. Spinning wheels were essential to Gandhi's vision of Indian unity and independence; they symbolized pre-industrial textile production and economic self-reliance independent of British goods. In fact, he is sometimes credited with the invention of the portable charkha during his time in the Yerwada prison; he devoted an hour each day to spinning thread and encouraged all Indians to do the same.

The act became iconographic as a form of protest. Margaret Bourke-White's 1946 portrait of Gandhi at his spinning wheel is one of the most recognizable images of the leader, and it was at Gandhi's encouragement that a spinning wheel was included in the design for the new flag of the Indian National Congress. Gandhi appears to have gifted several spinning wheels to others, including one in 1935 to the American Free Methodist missionary Reverend Floyd A. Puffer and another in 1942 to the industrialist Henry Ford in 1942. The present lot appeared on the Antiques Roadshow on 26 January 2015.

REFERENCES

"Children Sail, Bearing Invitation for Gandhi; Mariam and Lilabati Ghose Take Pleas From Five Cities for Visit by Mahatma," The New York Times, 15 October 1931, https://www.nytimes.com/1931/10/15/archives/children-sail-bearing-invitation-for-gandhi-mariam-and-lilabati.html, accessed 10 May 2026; "Gandhi Refuses Invitation; Disappoints Girls Who Journey From America With Mayors' Pleas," The New York Times, 23 October 1931, https://www.nytimes.com/1931/10/23/archives/gandhi-refuses-invitation-disappoints-girls-who-journey-from.html, accessed 10 May 2026; cf. The Henry Ford Museum 42.142.1

PROVENANCE

Mohandas K. Gandhi, presented to — Mariam and Lilabati Ghose — thence by descent — Christie's, 2 February 2024, lot 150