Deal to Stop Auction of Mahatma Gandhi Belongings Falls Through

A last-minute attempt to stop the auction of personal items that belonged to Mahatma Gandhi has failed after the Indian government today rejected a proposal by the owner to halt it in exchange for commitments to fighting poverty.

Anand Sharma, India's junior foreign minister, said the demands – which included reallocating parts of the national budget – infringed on India's sovereignty.

The items, which include the former Indian leader's iconic Zenith pocket watch, steel-rimmed spectacles, a pair of sandals, an eating bowl, a blood report with his name on it and a telegram sent by him – are due to go on sale in New York later today.

The planned auction of Gandhi's personal effects, which belong to the collector and peace activist James Otis, caused an outcry in India and prompted the government to attempt to bring the pacifist icon's belongings back to his homeland.

Otis, a peace activist and film-maker from Los Angeles, collected the items over decades.

Antiquorum Auctioneers has set a reserve price between $20,000 (£14,000) and $30,000, but the actual price could well be much higher.

The auction reveals the use a new tactic for peace campaigners – moral pressure.

Otis says he is motivated not by greed but by ethics.

The film-maker - a friend Lester Kurtz, a professor at George Mason University who also has a collection of Gandhi memorabilia - offered a simple deal to the Indian government.

He told officials the sale would go ahead unless it committed to either decrease the numbers of India's poor by "a few percentage points and to develop Indian's healthcare" or back a worldwide tour promoting non-violence.

The public healthcare system in India is vastly underfunded, getting a little over 1% of the country's budget. Its antiquated hospitals stand in stark contrast to the western-style private clinics that attract millions of medical tourists every year.

Otis says that a "dramatic gesture" for the poor – who make up one-third of India's 1 billion population, would "demonstrate to the entire world the commitment of the Indian government to following the principles of Gandhi's historical message".

Alternatively India could "provide financial support and the good offices of Indian embassies and consulates, as well as other contacts in the Indian community, to support educational events that use the Gandhi items to promote Gandhian non-violence ... to reach at least 78 countries, one for each of the number of years Gandhi graced us with his life on the planet".

Gandhi's surviving relatives urged the Indian government or wealthy businesspeople to step in and purchase the items "for the nation".

The Indian government attempted to block the sale, with the Delhi high court issuing an injunction, but this was a symbolic gesture as it was unenforceable in the US.

One New Yorkbusinessman of Indian origin, the hotelier Sant Chatwal, who is close the Clintons, told Indian media that a group of wealthy donors was ready to "buy [the Gandhi items} so that no one else can buy them".

Gandhi's personal effects are of huge historic and symbolic value, experts said. Gandhi had referred to the glasses as the lens "through which he had envisioned the freedom of India".