The Ma(homo)tama!

A man of vision, a man who led Indians to freedom, who went on hunger strikes, protested against the British empire, who made salt , who abandoned his family for the sake of his brothers and sisters and who fought his blood out to gain Independence. He was everything good one could think of-god, a saint, a commoner or simply a happily married man with kids and great ambitions. That’s Mohan Das Karam Chand Gandhi for everybody except ‘one’. He is the Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of “Great Soul : Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India”, Joseph Lelyveld. The book is a biography of Indian political and spiritual leader M.K.Gandhi and is split between the time Gandhi spent in South Africa and his return to India as the Mahatma. The book portays Gandhi as a homo(or bisexual) in a relationship with one of his disciples, Hermann Kallenbach. Kallenbach was a German-born-Jewish-South African architect who was one of the foremost friends and associates of Mahatma Gandhi. Lelyveld quotes correspondence between Gandhi and Kallenbach, including excerpts from the latter's diary, with language that seems suggestive of a homosexual relationship with Gandhi speaking of his disciple Kallenbach as "Lower House," and of himself as "Upper House," and saying that cotton-wool and Vaseline were a constant reminder of their "mutual love," Lelyveld says this relates to the cotton wool and Vaseline that Gandhi and Kallenbach used in giving themselves enemas, one of Gandhi's fads. Both Lelyveld and other commentators have claimed that while the language by today's standards may seem to betray a homosexual relationship, for the time period in which it was used, it was the usual language between close platonic friendship bonds!!
The book has not gone down well with people. Politicians in India have generally and across the political spectrum denounced the book and demanded it be banned as being allegedly defamatory. Also they have asked a “public apology” by Lelyveld and even have asked for his prosecution. The book is perverse in nature, hurting the sentiments of those with capacity for sane and logical thinking. Liberal commentators and some Gandhi kin have taken umbrage towards this backlash against Lelyveld. The crust of the matter lies in the fact that how does it any which matter if the Mahatma was straight, gay or bisexual? Every time he would be remembered, he would still be the man who led India to freedom.