Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Joseph Lelyveld has flatly denied that his book claims that Gandhi was bisexual and racist. -- PHOTO: AP
New Delhi: India is mulling over a law to protect the image of the revered Mahatma Gandhi after an outcry over a new biography, which set off speculation that his sexual preferences included men as well as women.The Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi And His Struggle With India written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Joseph Lelyveld is not yet available here but it has already landed in controversy.
Passions have been aroused after some reviewers in Britain and the US suggested that the book concluded that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who led India's independence movement, was bisexual and racist.
The author has flatly denied that his book makes any such claims.
'I do not allege that Gandhi is racist or bisexual. The word 'racist' is used once to characterise comments by Gandhi early in his stay in South Africa... the chapter in no way concludes that he was a racist or offers any suggestion of it,' he said in a statement on the references in the book to a friendship between Gandhi and German body builder and architect Hermann Kallenbach.
Gandhi lived with him for two years in a house in South Africa. Lelyveld has said that letters Gandhi wrote to Kallenbach are part of the Collected Works Of Mahatma Gandhi (Volume 96) published by the Indian government.
In one letter, Gandhi tells Kallenbach: 'How completely you have taken possession of my body. This is slavery with a vengeance.
'Your portrait (the only one) stands on my mantelpiece in the bedroom. The mantelpiece is opposite the bed.'
In another letter, Gandhi� wrote: 'More love, and yet more love ... such love as they hope the world has not yet seen.'�
A review in The Wall Street Journal, which was among the reviews that sparked off the controversy in India,�sums up Lelyveld's book as portraying Gandhi as 'a sexual weirdo, a political incompetent, a fanatical faddist, implacably racist, and a ceaseless self-promoter, professing his love for mankind as a concept while actually despising people as individuals'.
Two weeks ago, Gujarat, Gandhi's home state, banned the sale of the book. Its Chief Minister Narendra Modi called it 'perverse'. Now the neighbouring state of Maharashtra is threatening a similar ban.
More than 60 years after Gandhi's death, controversies about the apostle of non-violence continue to erupt occasionally.
Luxury pen-maker brand Mont Blanc was forced to withdraw a US$25,000 (S$30,000) pen that used Gandhi's name and image in 2009 over criticism that it was an insult to a figure known for frugal living.
Amid the latest controversy, calls are being made for legislation to make it a criminal offence to insult Gandhi.
'Like the Queen of England, Mahatma Gandhi should be above everything,' said Congress politician Krishna Hegde.
India's Law Minister Veerappa Moily has indicated that the government was considering amending the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, but critics say it undermines the freedom of expression.
Mr Moily was dissuaded from imposing an countrywide ban on the Lelyveld biography after the author explained that his book was based on material sourced from the National Archives of India and was not a 'sensationalist' book.
Though Gandhi is revered in India, historians, writers and academics have continued to analyse his beliefs and his personal life, which Gandhi wrote�about in his autobiography The Story Of My Experiments With Truth.
But eminent Gandhi scholars agreed that he was a figure who would continue to be discussed and yet evoke respect.
And, as Gandhi's great-grandson Tushar Gandhi put in a tweet: 'How does it matter if the Mahatma was straight, gay or bisexual? He would still be the man who led India to freedom.'
Interest in Gandhism has peaked recently with social activist Anna Hazare successfully using a Gandhi-style protest to get the government to set up an independent corruption ombudsman.
Just last month, marchers in India and other countries re-enacted the Dandi March, Gandhi's�historic march against the British salt tax, to protest against corruption.
A hit Bollywood movie Lage Raho (Keep Going) Munna Bhai, which showed a lovable rogue becoming a Gandhi scholar to impress the girl of his dreams, released in 2006, also helped reignite interest in the Indian freedom icon.
By Nirmala Ganapathy, India Correspondent
From the Straits Times
gnirmala@sph.com.sg
