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Apr 7, 2011
A state in western India banned Pulitzer Prize-winning author Joseph Lelyveld’s new book about Mahatma Gandhi after reviews said 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 March 30 to immediately ban “Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India.”
The furor was sparked by local media reports, based on early reviews out of the United States and United Kingdom, some of which emphasized passages in the book suggesting Gandhi had an intimate relationship with a German man named Hermann Kallenbach.
“The book does not say that Gandhi was bisexual or homosexual,” Lelyveld wrote in an e-mail. “It says that he was celibate and deeply attached to Kallenbach. This is not news.”
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.
— from AP reports
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