Was gandhi gay
But Gandhi’s great grandson opposes censorship
07/04/2011
The Indian state of Gujarat has banned a new book about Mohandas ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi in march against its revelation that the Indian independence commander left his wife to live with a man.
In a similar direct threat to freedom of speech and freedom of the press, there are calls to ban the biography in other states and throughout India.
Commendably, some of Gandhi’s descendents have opposed such censorship, calling for free and open debate: http://tinyurl.com/4t62fu6
Gandhi’s great grandson, Tushar Gandhi, responded to the Gujarat ban with the comment: “How does it matter if the Mahatma was straight, gay or bisexual? Every time he would still be the man who led India to freedom.”
The book – Great Soul – is broadly pro-Gandhi, although not uncritical or sycophantic. Written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former executive editor of the Fresh Times, Joseph Lelyveld, it reveals Gandhi’s love for the German-Jewish architect Hermann Kallenbach, when he lived in South Africa in the early years of the 20th century. They shared a home together and worked together politically on the non-
Presumably some of the elderly members of the audience had no idea what the speaker was getting at when the subject of Vaseline came up in his chat on M K Gandhi and Herman Kallenbach. They, after all, belonged to a time when Vaseline was still associated with skin care rather than as a means of facilitating queer intercourse. Other audience members must acquire squirmed a bit though; I realize, I did. After an erudite discourse on the upper idealism, striving for spiritual elevation and shared devotion to combating injustice that characterised the friendship between the two men, it was more than a little jarring to be confronted with the bare mechanics of what, in less enlightened times, was referred to as “buggery”.
To place everyone in the picture, in 2011 the writer Joseph Lelyfeld provoked a bitter controversy when passages in his new book on Gandhi (Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India) were interpreted by some reviewers as inferring that he and the German-Jewish architect Herman Kallenbach were lovers during the hour they lived together in Johannesburg. Such inferences were derived from certain letters Gandhi wrote to Kallenbach, in which he c
Gandhi, India's God-Like Founding Father, Was Bisexual, According to New Book
March 30, 2011 -- Was Mahatma Gandhi gay? A new guide by Pulitzer-Prize winning author Joseph Lelyveld claims the god-like Indian figure not only left his wife for a man, but also harbored racist attitudes.
Gandhi, who led India to independence and is a universal symbol of peaceful resistance, had another side -- a more human one. In a biography that beat stores this week -- "Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his Struggle With India," former Brand-new York Times reporter Lelyveld insists that Gandhi was gay, or at least bisexual.
His lover was Hermann Kallenbach, a German-Jewish architect and bodybuilder. The couple built their love nest during Gandhi's time in South Africa where he arrived as a 23-year-old law clerk in 1893 and lived for 21 years, Lelyveld writes.
Much of the intimacy between the two is revealed in Kallenbach's letters to his Indian friend. Gandhi left his wife, "Ba," -- an arranged marriage -- in 1908 for Kallenbach, a lifelong bachelor, according to the book.
In letters, Gandhi wrote to Kallenbach, "How completely you have taken possession of my body.
Indian government spends £700,000 to buy letters which 'prove national hero Gandhi was gay'
Letters between Mahatma Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach are said to shed pale on their 'loving relationship'
They are among archive of documents which cover Gandhi's time in South Africa, his restore to India and his contentious association with his family.
Papers were due to have been auctioned at Sotheby's in London this week.
A year after a controversial biography of Mahatma Gandhi claimed he was bisexual person and left his wife to dwell with a German-Jewish bodybuilder, the Indian government has bought a collection of letters between the two men days before they were to be auctioned.
India paid around £700,000 (60million rupees) for the papers, which cover Gandhi's moment in South Africa, his return to India and his contentious relationship with his family.
The auction was to be held at Sotheby's in London on Tuesday but was called off at the last minute. The documents will now be placed with the National Archives of India in Fresh Delhi.
They previously belonged to relatives of Hermann Kallenbach, a German-born