When Nehru got request to start a new 'era' named after Gandhi

While numerous streets, places, parks and buildings have been named after him, a few months after Mahatma Gandhi's assassination, a rather unusual request was made to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to name an "entire era" after the Father of the Nation.
The letter sent in July, 1948, by a man named K S V Rao from Cuddalore district in Tamil Nadu, called it a "fitting tribute" to Gandhi, and even proposed a calendar fashioned out of the values and articles associated with him.
While the idea did not meet its desired objective, the letter carrying the proposal, however, ended up in the National Archives here.

"I am suggesting herewith a copy of an Era to be started after the name, Our Bapuji -- the Father of our Nation -- as a fitting tribute, living monument for favour of kind consideration and approval," the letter reads.
Among the months suggested for the calendar by Rao are 'Mohana' (Gandhi's first name), 'Ahimsa' (non-violence), 'Sathiya' (truth) and 'Chakra' (spinwheel) among others.
The letter was displayed at the National Archives (NAI) here as part of an exhibition to mark the historic institution's 125th year celebrations.

The month-long display titled 'Treasures of National Archives' for which the NAI pulled out its rare and original archives, ended on Friday.

Among other rare archives on display are also the matriculation marksheet of Gandhi as a student at the Kathiwar High School in Rajkot, dated November 1887.
Gandhi's (Porbandar) total score stands at 247.5 and incidentally another student named Virji Manordas Gandhi (Rajkot) is shown two notches above in the rank with 260.33 marks.
Among the rare records of early post-colonial era is a notification declaring the institution of "Indian Independence Medal" by King George VI.
"The medal which will be circular in shape and of cupro-nickel will bear on the obverse a representation of the Imperial Crown and Asoka's Chakra surrounded by the inscription 'Georgius VI D: G: Britt: Omn: Rex: Fid: Def' and on the reverse the representation of Asoka's three lions and depicted on the Pillar of Sarnath with the inscriptions 'Indian Independence' and '15th August 1947'," it says.

The medal was instituted according to a Royal Warrant dated July 21, 1948 and published in the Gazette of India dated September 18, 1948.
"We pulled out some of the rarest of the gems from our archival chest of treasure and over this one-month period these documents and images have delighted people as much as they have educated, about India before Independence and after," a senior official of the NAI's Exhibition Unit told PTI.
The Imperial Record Department, born in Calcutta (now Kolkata) on March 11, 1891, it was later moved to New Delhi post the shifting of the imperial capital to Delhi in 1911. The present building of NAI was constructed in 1926 and the transfer of all records was completed in 1937.