11 OCTOBER 1969, Page 33

Mahatma's magic

Sir: Geoffrey Ashe, reviewing Francis Watson's Trial of Mr Gandhi (4 October), says that Mr Watson refutes the story that Gandhi dismissed the Cripps offer as 'a post- dated cheque on a crashing bank' and credits the historian, the late K. M. Panikkar, with the remark.

But according to my friend Mr Obadiah Rahman, who was at the time an Information Officer of the Indian government's Bureau of Public Information, and who was next to Gandhi when the latter was being inter- viewed by newsmen, Gandhi said 'The offer is a post-dated cheque' to which the late A. S. Iyengar, a prominent journalist, added, amidst loud laughter '—on a crashing bank'. The combination was irresistible and Gandhi was credited with it. If K. M. Panikkar used the words it was because they went round the world and had become common coin.