Gandhi book based on archives: Lelyveld

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Pulitzer prize-winning author Jeseph Lelyveld, writer of a new book on Mahatma Gandhi that has generated a controversy in India, says that his work is “not sensationalist”, and is based on material that is already published and available in the National Archives of India (NAI).

Lelyveld’s book, Great soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his struggle with India, is not yet available in India, which means much of the controversy has been generated based on a review of the book published mainly in Britain’s newspaper Daily Mail. The review, published on 28 March, said the book claimed that Gandhi was “bisexual” and was “deeply in love with Hermann Kallenbach”, a Prussian architect and bodybuilder who became Gandhi’s disciple in South Africa.
“This is not a sensationalist book. I did not say Gandhi had a male lover. I said he lived with a man who was an architect as well as a body builder for nearly four years. The letters are part of the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (volume 96, to be precise) published by the government of India. They are in the Indian National Archive. That particular volume was first published in 1994. In other words, the material I used contains no news,” Lelyveld said.
Much of the controversy has arisen over the conclusions in reviews about Gandhi’s sexuality based on extracts of his letters published in the book. The extracts from correspondence available in the NAI suggest a close relationship between Gandhi and Kallenbach. —PTI