AHAMEDABAD: The Beatles removed Mahatma Gandhi’s picture from the 1967 album cover of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in case it upset Indians, but such restraint is now a thing of the past.

Today, Gandhi memorabilia is auctioned off in New York and London with his scant personal possessions attracting sky high prices, while his image is used on pens, billboards and souvenirs.

“People want to buy every piece of history associated with the great man,” Tushar Gandhi, the great-grandson of India’s independence leader, told AFP.

“Anything that comes with a ‘Gandhi’ tag sells, and India has not been able to protect the items belonging to the father of the nation.” The auction in the United States last year of Gandhi’s glasses, leather sandals, pocket watch, metal plate and bowl triggered a major public debate over exploitation of his memory.

The Indian government first tried to prevent the auction and then seemed ready to buy the items itself, before Indian industrialist and liquor baron Vijay Mallaya stepped in with a winning bid of 1.8 m dollars.

In South Africa, a house where Gandhi lived sold last year to a French tourism company Voyageurs du Monde for 377,000 dollars — far above the norm for a small house with a thatched roof in Johannesburg.

Gandhi only occupied it for a few years, but the company is planning to open the building as a museum and guest house.

In one recent row, luxury brand Montblanc in February suspended sales in India of a “Gandhi” pen that cost 25,000 dollars.

The limited-edition pen was launched to supposedly mark the anniversary of Gandhi’s 1930 protest march from Ahmedabad against British salt tax, a key episode in his non-violent campaign for independence.

Montblanc hoped that the pen “honouring” Gandhi would help it tap into India’s wealthiest brand-conscious consumers, but instead it ended up in court over laws that say government permission is needed to use Gandhi’s image.

India’s ministry of culture says it is preparing further legislation to prevent Gandhi’s belongings being traded for money and to protect his image from being misused.

“We want to pre-empt any auction of Gandhi items. Selling or buying these heritage articles should be illegal but sadly most of the items have already changed hands,” an official said. Gandhi often gifted his belongings to friends, family and casual visitors.