Indian artifacts, gandhi and culture

Much has been going on about Gandhi's articles going under the hammer outside India, his pencil, underwear, spectacles and now even his drop of blood. The big question to ask is, who is Gandhi, is he the drop of blood, is he the underwear or is he the pencil he used? It is easy to give values to these artifacts but the real Gandhi is the spirit of ahimsa (non voilence) satya (truth), seva (service) and sacrifice, non of which can ever go under any hammer. Why then are we fretting ourselves silly over these other artifacts, in fact, I believe, we would honour Gandhi more if we took the money or resources we would spend on that auction and fund the education of some poor children in India. That guesture will keep the spirit of Gandhi alive.
We could stop there, but there is another aspect to this issue, maybe not so much for Gandhi's artifacts but for other pieces of our culture which are routinely auctioned all over the world. A friend of mine used to say, today its a painting, tomorrow its a statue, soon an Indian will have to travel to a museum outside India (and pay them money) to view the culture of India. That will be a sad day, our youth who are slowly losing touch with our culture, will soon forget who we were, what we did, and why the world was in awe of India. This is one reason why we need to keep our cultural artifacts within India.