01 Apr 2011 01:17:04
More bans have been proposed in India, where homosexuality was illegal until 2009 and still carries social stigma.
Gujarat's state assembly voted unanimously Wednesday to immediately ban "Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India."
The furor was sparked by local media reports, based on early reviews out of the U.S. and U.K., some of which emphasized passages in the book suggesting Gandhi had an intimate relationship with a German man named Hermann Kallenbach.
"Great Soul" has not yet been released in India, so few here have actually read Lelyveld's writings.
"The book does not say that Gandhi was bisexual or homosexual," Lelyveld wrote in an email. "It says that he was celibate and deeply attached to Kallenbach. This is not news."
He noted that his book — which is said is about Gandhi's struggle for social justice and the evolution of his social values — is available both in the U.S. and as an e-book download.
"It should not be hard for anyone to determine what it actually says," Lelyveld wrote. " It's a pious hope, but I'd say someone might take the trouble to look at it before it's banned."
Several reviews of "Great Soul" detailed its sections on Gandhi's relationship with Kallenbach.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Andrew Roberts said that the only portrait on the mantelpiece opposite Gandhi's bed was of Kallenbach.
"How completely you have taken possession of my body," reads one widely quoted letter from Gandhi to Kallenbach. "This is slavery with a vengeance."
Britain's Daily Mail ran an article under the blaring headline: "Gandhi 'left his wife to live with a male lover' new book claims."
The Mumbai Mirror on Tuesday ran a front page story under the headline "Book claims German man was Gandhi's secret love," which quoted the same passages as Roberts.
Sudhir Kakar, a psychoanalyst who has written about Gandhi's sexuality and reviewed some of his correspondence with Kallenbach, said he does not believe the two men were lovers.
