Joseph Lelyveld (86), the eminent American journalist who passed away recently, was an avid India watcher with an abiding interest in Gandhi and a curiosity for Kerala’s Communism. His story -Communism, Kerala Style - published in April 1967 while he was the New York Times (NYT) correspondent in India, was one of his most appreciated pieces and won him an in-house award. This was written after he visited Kerala and met many leaders, including EMS Namboodiripad. This story followed another one by him published in February, which predicted the CPI(M)-led seven-party alliance’s win in the state assembly elections, which were held a week later.
But the most controversial work of the Pulitzer-winning reporter who became NYT’s Executive Editor was his 2011 book on Gandhi - Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi’s Struggle with India - which hinted that the Mahatma could be a homosexual or bisexual. Lelyveld referred to Gandhi’s bond with Hermann Kallenbach, a Prussian-born Jew two years younger than him, as the “most intimate, also ambiguous relationship of his lifetime.” The book also said that Gandhi was not free from racist prejudices against blacks during his time in South Africa, even as he struggled for the rights of the Indian community.
To be fair to Lelyveld, the book never explicitly said that Gandhi was either gay or bisexual or a racist. After it triggered much furore worldwide, Lelyveld publicly stated he had never made such allegations. Moreover, he also said in the book, “In an age when the concept of platonic love gains little credence, selectively chosen details of the relationship and quotations from letters can easily be arranged to suggest a conclusion.”
However, the book contained graphic details about Gandhi’s intimate friendship with the multi-faceted Kallenbach, an architect, bodybuilder, swimmer, gymnast, and Zionist. The book made many readers presume that their friendship clearly contained homosexual elements. Lelyveld quotes a particular letter that Gandhi sent to Kallenbach from London in 1909, which cemented this presumption. “Your portrait (the only one) stands on my mantelpiece in the bedroom. The mantelpiece is opposite to the bed. It is to show you and me how completely you have taken possession of my body. This is slavery with a vengeance”. In 1911, Gandhi made him promise “not to contract any marriage tie during his absence or look lustfully upon any woman.” He also wrote that “we should pledge to each other more love and yet more love..such love as the world has not yet seen”. At the 1100-acre land purchased by Kallenbach on the bare slope of a hill, he and Gandhi set up the famous Tolstoy Farm, a community ashram near Johannesburg, in 1910. Kallenbach had kept safe all the letters from Gandhi, which were purchased by the Indian government in 2013 when they were planned to be auctioned. But Kallenbach’s letters to Gandhi have not been traced.
Though today’s enlightened opinion would grant freedom to everyone the right to hold any sexual orientation of their own choice, the book appeared only two years after India’s Supreme Court decriminalised homosexuality. However, those who study Gandhi in depth would know that though the committed celibate had intimate relationships with both men and women, they never went beyond the platonic. Throughout his life, Gandhi had publicly tried to involve everyone willing to partake in his unconventional experiments on various matters, including celibacy, dietary practices, medical protocols, and many others, which may appear offensive or even weird to others.
But since Mahatma is a demi-god to Indians, the book was promptly banned in his native Gujarat immediately after it came out. The mention of his unconventional sexuality was seen as a sacrilege committed against the Mahatma, as we could never see him as a human with imperfections. Though we would shoot him to death, could we ever let him be “defamed”? It was the BJP government of Gujarat, led by none other than Chief Minister Narendra Modi, that banned the book following the state legislature's unanimous passing of a resolution. Modi said, "The writing is perverse in nature. It has hurt the sentiments of those with the capacity for sane and logical thinking. Mahatma Gandhi is an idol in India and the entire world. While his life - dedicated to the welfare of mankind - has been an inspiration, the author has hurt the sentiments of crores of people." The Maharashtra government also called for a ban. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance was in power at centre and Veerappa Moily, the Union Law Minister, was no less furious. "The government has taken a serious note of the book that has made a disgraceful statement on the national leader. It is demeaning for the nation." Interestingly, the only dissenting voice was of Tushar Gandhi, Mahatma’s grandson, who opposed the ban.
The book created a stir worldwide. While some rejoiced at the “unmasking of the god with feet of clay,” some thanked the author for an informed, nuanced, and complete picture of Gandhi, the human. British historian Andrew Robert sounded visibly hostile to Gandhi in his article in the Wall Street Journal, saying that the book, though admiring of Gandhi, exposed him as a “sexual weirdo, a political incompetent and a fanatic faddist.” In his article “The Real Mahatma” in “The Atlantic,” Christopher Hichens said Lelyveld’s book questioned the “moral heroism of India’s most revered figure”.
There were also voices of sanity. In NYT, Hari Kunsru said the book appreciated Gandhi through his human side. “Mr. Lelyveld has restored human depth to the Mahatma, the plaster saint, allowing his flawed human readers to feel a little closer to his lofty ideals of non-violence and universal brotherhood.” Rattled by the uproar, Lelyveld said. "I do not allege that Gandhi is a racist or bisexual. The word 'bisexual' nowhere appears in the book,” he stated.
While this controversy was raging, yet another interesting piece of information surfaced. Much before Lelyveld, another American Gandhi scholar, James. D. Hunt had pointed out in 1995 that the relationship between Gandhi and Kallenbach was “homoerotic” and not homosexual. Homoeroticism, though too, is concerned with sexual desire towards a person of the same sex and does not necessarily involve an actual physical relationship.
Allegations and interpretations aside, Lelyveld’s book was the first and most comprehensive account of a particularly significant aspect of Gandhi’s personality. It was also the first to give us a detailed picture of Kallenbach, one of Gandhi’s closest friends whose role in shaping the Mahatma’s perspective was no less significant.
Kallenbach was born in 1871 in Lithuania as the son of a prosperous timber merchant. He served in the German army and then trained as an architect in Stuttgart before arriving in Johannesburg at 24 in 1895 to join his uncles. Kallenbach built a successful practice as an architect in South Africa. Gandhi arrived in South Africa in 1893 to serve as a legal counsel to Dada Abdulla, an Indian merchant from his native Kathiawar. Having experienced extreme discrimination from the dominant Whites, Gandhi soon emerged as a leader of the local Indian community to fight for their long-repressed rights. Kallenbach met Gandhi in 1904 and came under his magnetic influence. He was also converted to Gandhi’s ideals, like vegetarianism, abstinence from sex, alcohol, and even wealth. In 1908, Kallenbach wrote to his brother, “For the last two years, I have given up meat-eating; for the last year, I also did not touch fish anymore, and for the last 18 months, I have given up my sex life.” Kallenbach and Gandhi lived together for at least three years, participating in all political and spiritual pursuits. They decided to spend life together permanently.
Kallenbach set out with Gandhi when he returned to India in 1914 by sea. However, with the outbreak of the First World War, Kallenbach was detained by the British authorities on the way due to his German background. Gandhi was heartbroken and could only meet Kallenbach again in 1937 when the latter visited India.
It is interesting to note today one particular aspect of Kallenbach’s reunion with Gandhi in 1937 when Mahatma’s stand on the Palestine issue is again being discussed due to the ongoing war in Gaza. Kallenbach visited Gandhi as instructed by the Jewish leaders of Palestine to convince him of their cause. However, as we know, though Gandhi was in complete agreement with the Jews’ right to their native land, he was opposed to carving it by force in Palestine without the Arabs' consent. He even offered to mediate between the Jews and the Arabs. Though Kallenbach conveyed Gandhi’s offer to the Jewish leadership, there was no response.
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