Lelyveld says ban shameful,intellectuals voice outrage

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Pulitzer prize-winning author Joseph Lelyveld has opposed a ban on his controversial book on Mahatma Gandhi, describing the move 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,” Lelyveld said.
He was reacting to the ban imposed by Gujarat government on his book, which reportedly talks about the sexual preferences of Mahatma Gandhi.
Maharashtra government is also mulling a proposal to ban the book in the state.
“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 told CNN-IBN news channel.
The author of the book titled Great Soul; Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India has triggered a controversy with Gandhi’s kin and historians saying it was an attempt to “sensationalise” the life of the icon of non-violence and showed the “negative” mindset of the author.
Defending his work, Lelyveld said: “It is a responsible book, it is a sensitive book, it is a book that is admiring of Gandhi and his struggle for social justice in India and it’s been turned into as if it is some kind of sensationalist pot boiler. It is not.”
He dismissed reports that his work include offensive languages against Mahatma, saying the book does not talk about the sexual preferences of the Indian leader.
“It does not say Gandhi was bisexual. It does not say that he was homosexual,” Lelyveld.
“It does not say that he was a racist. The word bisexual never appears in the book and the word racist only appears once in a very limited context; relating to a single phrase and not to Gandhi’s whole set attitudes or history in South Africa,” he clarified, adding “I didn’t say these things, So I can hardly defend them.”
Meanwhile, intellectuals and Gandhi kin have come out in the open against the clamour for taking out of shelves a controversial book on Mahatma Gandhi, saying banning is not a “democratic response”.
Gujarat government has already banned the book while Maharashtra is contemplating such an action. Union law minister M. Veerappa Moily had also hinted at such a possibility earlier.
Gandhi’s great grandson Tushar Gandhi said it will be a “greater insult” to Bapu than that book or the author might have intended.
“If the government of Maharashtra bans the book, it will be a greater insult to Bapu than that book or the author might have intended. I will challenge the ban,” he tweeted.
He said he was against the culture of banning books and added “how does it matter if the Mahatma was straight, gay or bisexual? Every time he would still be the man who led India to freedom”.
Writer K. Sachidanandan said the plans to ban the book should be condemned. “Banning a book is not a democratic action,” Tushar said.
Another writer Namita Gokhale noted that “every time a book is banned, it saddens me because you simple cannot ban ideas, you cannot ban thoughts.”
She said she was more resigned than upset by this development.