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  "This is what I gave voluntarily at the risk of my life to keep my promise to the Government": Exceptionally rare document containing the fingerprints of Mohandas K. Gandhi; signed and inscribed by him

  GANDHI, Mohandas K.

  Mohandas K. Gandhi Signed Document.

  1909.

  Early 20th century South African government document containing the fingerprints of Mohandas K. Gandhi, signed and inscribed by him, "This is what I gave voluntarily at the risk of my life to keep my promise to the Government. Phoenix, Natal, 15th February 1909, M.K. Gandhi." In April 1893, Gandhi aged 23, set sail for South Africa to practice law in the colony of Natal, which, like India was part of the British Empire. The racial discrimination he experienced in his first year of residence inspired him to found the Natal Indian Congress which opposed several proposed discriminatory legislations and molded the Indian community of South Africa into a unified political force. One of the NIC's notable efforts was organizing public resistance to the South African government's mandatory fingerprinting of Indian South African residents in 1907 and 1908. Gandhi was repeatedly arrested and imprisoned for refusing to submit to fingerprinting, both of himself and other Indians. In October 1908, during a trip to the Transvaal, Gandhi refused to produce a registration certificate or other means of identity to officials at the Natal-Transvaal border, and was charged under section 9 of the Asiatic Registration Amendment Act, a law which had only been in force since September 21st 1908. Gandh...

  Price: $650,000.00     Item Number: 132138

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