Gandhi biography discussing his sexuality is banned in some Indian states

Gandhi biography discussing his sexuality is banned in some Indian states

Pulitzer Prize winner Joseph Lelyveld says reviews of "Great Soul," his book about Gandhi, are distorting the truth.

Did Mahatma Gandhi have a homosexual relationship? The suggestion that he did is causing some Indian states to ban sales of "Great Soul" by Joseph Lelyveld.

The lurid press coverage is behind the decision of several Indian states to ban – or consider banning – a new book about Mahatma Gandhi after reviews suggested the revered Mahatma had a homosexual relationship.

The state assembly of Gujarat, where Gandhi was born, voted unanimously to immediately ban Joseph Lelyveld’s “Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India” with many other states like Maharastra keen to follow suit.

ecause the book has not yet been released in India, the outcry and resulting bans are based on US and UK book reviews – some accompanied by headlines like those above – that suggest Gandhi had an intimate relationship with German-Jewish bodybuilder Hermann Kallenbach. ...

And the suggestion Gandhi had a homosexual relationship has sparked outrage in India.

In the Wall Street Journal, conservative historian Andrew Roberts writes, “‘Great Soul’ also obligingly gives readers more than enough information to discern that [Gandhi] was a sexual weirdo, a political incompetent and a fanatical faddist – one who was often downright cruel to those around him.” ...

Even Gandhi's grandson, Rajmohan, weighed in. He dismissed the implications about Gandhi's sexual life and rejected calls for a ban, calling it “wrong from every point of view, and doubly so in the light of Gandhi's commitment to freedom of speech.”

“We need not mind the Lelyveld book,” he wrote in the Hindustan Times.

[Read the articles at the blue color links.]