From Ranganath Ramachandra Diwakar
Author: Diwakar, Ranganath Ramachandra
Date: July 22, 1961
Location: Bangalore, India
Genre: Letter
Details
The chairman of the Gandhi National Memorial Fund thanks King for granting him permission to publish an excerpt of Stride Toward Freedom in his journal.1 Diwakar sends his best wishes to King and notes that in India he occasionally discusses how “Gandhiji’s teaching is a living gospel for our struggling brethren in U.S.A.”2
Dr. Martin Luther King
407 Auburn Avenue N.E.
Atlanta 12, Georgia
USA
My dear Friend Rev. Dr. King:
Re: Stride Towards Freedom and a Kannada condensation
I am extremely thankful to you for your very sympathetic and warm letter and for giving me permission to give a condensation in my Kannada Digest Kasturi of your book.
I presume that the number of words is ‘five thousand’ asked for and not ‘fifty’ as indicated in the second line of your letter.3
The humble royalty offered should be accepted when sent by us on our receiving a formal letter from you mentioning the fact of the royalty. That letter is necessary for purposes of the Reserve Bank of India rules here.
I often recall my brief stay at Atlanta, and the heartening talk I had there and elsewhere in U.S.A.4 On occasions, I mention here that Gandhiji’s teaching is a living gospel for our struggling brethern in U.S.A.
You may be pleased to know that the Gandhi National Memorial Fund has sanctioned Rs. 12,000/ = for Dr. Stuart Nelson’s visit to India for three months. He pleaded that he could not get together any money for his passage; hence this sanction. I have yet to know as to when he is proposing to come over here.5
Let me convey my best wishes for the heroic struggle you and your colleagues are carrying on.
Please remember me to friends and to your sweet wife and children.
With best regards,
Yours sincerely,
[signed] R. R. Diwakar
1. King to Diwakar, 30 June 1961. During King’s 1959 trip to India, Diwakar gave King a tour of the Mani Bhavan, Gandhi’s residence in Bombay. Ranganath Ramachandra Diwakar (1894–1990), born in Dharwar in southwest India, attended Fergusson College in Pune, India, where he obtained an M.A. in English (1918) and an LL.B. (1919). Diwakar participated in the Indian independence movement and was imprisoned for a number of years as a result. Following independence, he became governor of Bihar State, a position he held from 1952–1957. He also served as the trustee and editor of several Indian publications, including Kasturi, a Kannada language monthly publication dedicated to literature. Diwakar published several books on Gandhian nonviolence, most notably Satyagraha: Its History and Technique (1946).
2. In his consent letter King echoes Diwakar’s sentiment about the use of Gandhi’s nonviolent technique in the South: “Mahatma Gandhi, in the most amazing manner, continues to live not only in India but even in the southern part of the United States” (King to Diwakar, 30 June 1961).
3. Diwakar’s initial request of 27 May 1961 indicated five thousand words. King’s reply on 30 June indicated fifty.
4. Diwakar toured the United States from 8 September to 1 November 1960, and had stopped in Atlanta in October, attending Ebenezer to hear King preach and sharing a meal at King’s home (James R. Wood to William H. Hadley, 19 September 1960).
5. Nelson, who had visited India in 1946–1947, 1950, and 1958–1959, did not travel to India in the early 1960s.
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954–1968, Boston University, Boston, Mass.