The Danish Peace Academy
GANDHI AND NORDIC COUNTRIES
Collected by E. S. Reddy - EReddy@aol.com and Holger TerpLetter, January 21, 1932
[Gandhi was detained in Yeravda Central Prison from January 4, 1932, to May 8, 1933. He wrote several letters to Mrs. Menon and her children from prison.]
Yeravda Central Prison,
January 21, 1932
My dear child,
Your account of the meeting with the ailing sister150 is touching. Give my love to her when you visit her again.
I hope you are at peace with yourself now. The children must be quite well. Kiss them for me if they will let me kiss them.
Maria was with me in Bombay. But I had hardly time to talk to her.
I hope Menon is doing well. My love to him and to all at Woodbrooke settlement.151 Send my love to Miss Harrison152 and tell me where she is staying. Do you write to Maud Cheeseman?153
Love.
Bapu
[PS.]
Sardar Vallabhbhai is with me.154 Both of us are doing quite well.
Source: My Dear Child, pages 87-88; Collected Works, Volume 49, pages 15-16
150 Nellie Ball, an English girl, poor and bed-ridden, who was a great admirer of Gandhi
151 The Quaker Centre, near Birmingham. Mr. and Mrs. Menon were closely associated with it. Gandhi had visited it in 1931.
152 Miss Agatha Harrison, a Quaker. She met Gandhi in India in 1929 and assisted him during his visit to London in 1931. At Gandhi’s suggestion, she worked for reconciliation between India and Britain. The Indian question was first brought to the notice of the Bristsh section of the Women's International League of Peace and Freedom by Agatha Harrison, who had been sendt to India in 1929 as a personal assistent to Miss Beryl Power, the only women member of the Whitley Commission on Labour. In 1931 Miss Harrison meet Rev. C. F. Andrews, biographer of Mahatma Gandhi, and was invited to assist him with preparations for Gandhi's forthcomming visit to London to take part in the Second Round Table Conference on the Indian constitution. This was only the beginning of a close collaboration and friendship with C. F. Andrews that was to last until his death in 1940. Agatha Harrison became secretary of the Indian Concilation Group, formed in 1931. Pioneers for Peace : Women's International League for Peace and Freedom by Gertrude Bussey and Margaret Tims, 1980 pp109-110.
153 Mrs. Maud Cheeseman, sister of Henry Polak, was associated with Gandhi in South Africa and assisted him during his visit to London in 1931.
154 Vallabhbhai Patel, a national leader, was detained with Gandhi.
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