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India state bans book hinting Gandhi had gay lover
India state bans book hinting Gandhi had gay lover - Arts & Leisure - Jamaica Gleaner - Sunday | April 3, 2011
A state in western India banned Pulitzer-Prize winner Joseph Lelyveld's new book about Mahatma Gandhi last Wednesday after reviews saying it hints that the father of India's independence had a homosexual relationship. The author says his work is being misinterpreted.
More bans have been proposed in India where homosexuality was illegal until 2009 and still carries social stigma.
Gujarat's state assembly voted unanimously Wednesday to immediately ban Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India.
The furore was sparked by local media reports, based on early reviews out of the United States and United Kingdom, some of which emphasised passages in the book suggesting Gandhi had an intimate relationship with a German man named Hermann Kallenbach.
Great Soul has not yet been released in India, so few here have actually read Lelyveld's writings.
"The book does not say that Gandhi was bisexual or homosexual," Lelyveld wrote in an email. "It says that he was celibate and deeply attached to Kallenbach. This is not news."
He noted that his book - which is said is about Gandhi's struggle for social justice and the evolution of his social values - is available both in the US and as an e-book download.
"It should not be hard for anyone to determine what it actually says," Lelyveld wrote. "It's a pious hope, but I'd say someone might take the trouble to look at it before it's banned."
Several reviews of Great Soul detailed its sections on Gandhi's relationship with Kallenbach.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Andrew Roberts said that the only portrait on the mantelpiece opposite Gandhi's bed was of Kallenbach.
"How completely you have taken possession of my body," reads one widely quoted letter from Gandhi to Kallenbach. "This is slavery with a vengeance."
Britain's Daily Mail ran an article under the blaring headline: "Gandhi 'left his wife to live with a male lover' new book claims."
The Mumbai Mirror last Tuesday ran a front page story under the headline, 'Book claims German man was Gandhi's secret love', which quoted the same passages as Roberts.
Sudhir Kakar, a psychoanalyst who has written about Gandhi's sexuality and reviewed some of his correspondence with Kallenbach, said he does not believe the two men were lovers.
"It is quite a wrong interpretation," he said.
Gandhi's great goals were non-violence, celibacy and truth, he said.
"The Hindu idea is that sexuality has this elemental energy which gets dissipated," Kakar said. "If it can be sublimated and contained it can give you spiritual power. Gandhi felt his political power really came from his celibacy, from his spiritual power."
Strong love language
He said Gandhi often filled his letters, including those to female associates, with strong love language, but that did not lead to physical intimacy.
"Nothing happened," he said. "He is telling his feelings but they are platonic. They are not put into action. That would have been terrible for him."
Politicians in the state of Maharashtra, home to India's financial capital, Mumbai, have also called for a ban of the book and, along with Gujarat's chief minister Narendra Modi, have asked the central government to bar publication nationwide.
Modi said Lelyveld should apologise publicly for "hurting the sentiments of millions of people".
"It has become a fashion to tarnish the image of great Indian leaders for self-publicity and sale of books," said Sanjay Dutt, spokesman for the ruling Congress Party in Maharashtra. "The government should invoke a law to severely punish anyone who tarnishes the image of the father of the nation."
Ranjit Hoskote, a writer and general secretary of PEN India, which fights for free expression, condemned the ban and said local media had misconstrued both Lelyveld's intentions and the nature of Gandhi's relationship with Kallenbach.
"You can't cite a worse example of third-hand reportage and comment," he said. "How can you ban a book you haven't read?"
He said Gandhi's correspondence with Kallenbach has been available in library archives for decades. "There's no secret. There is no scandal," he said.
My book is based on published material, says Lelyveld
The Hindu : News / National : My book is based on published material, says Lelyveld
Pulitzer prize-winning author Joseph Lelyveld has said his book on Mahatma Gandhi is not sensationalist, and is based on material already published and available in the National Archives of India (NAI).
Mr. Lelyveld's book, Great soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his struggle with India, is not yet available in India. And much of the controversy has been generated by a review published mainly in Britain's tabloid Daily Mail. The review, published on March 28, said the book claimed that Gandhi was bisexual' and deeply in love with Hermann Kallenbach,' a Prussian architect and bodybuilder who became Gandhi's disciple in South Africa.
This is not a sensationalist book. I did not say Gandhi had a male lover. I said he lived with a man who was an architect as well as a body builder for nearly four years. The letters are part of the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (volume 96, to be precise) published by the government of India. They are in the Indian National Archive. That particular volume was first published in 1994. In other words, the material I used contains no news, Mr. Lelyveld told PTI by email.
The Gujarat government has banned the book, while Maharashtra is planning to follow suit.
Mr. Lelyveld has opposed the ban, describing it as shameful. In a country [India] that calls itself a democracy, it is shameful to ban a book that no one has read, including the people who are doing the banning.
They should at least make an effort to see the pages that they think offend them before they take such an extreme step. I find it very discouraging to think that India would so limit discussion, he said.
In his book, the former Executive Editor of The New York Times writes that Gandhi destroyed what he called Kallenbach's logical and charming love notes to him in the belief that he was honouring his friend's wish that they should not be seen by anyone else. But the architect saved all of Gandhi's, and his descendant's, decades after his death and Gandhi's, put them up for auction. Only then were the letters acquired by the National Archives of India and, finally, published.
Mr. Lelyveld adds: One respected Gandhi scholar characterised the relationship as clearly homoerotic' rather than homosexual, intending through that choice of words to describe a strong mutual attraction, nothing more. The conclusions passed on by word of mouth by South Africa's small Indian community were sometimes less nuanced. It was no secret then, or later, that Gandhi, leaving his wife behind, had gone to live with a man.
Is India a "democracy" and what happened to freedom of press and information ????
