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Journalism of Courage
The new Gandhi book,Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India,is struggling with India before it has even been read here. Former New York Times executive editor Joseph Lelyvelds biography of Gandhi has predictably been reviled and banned,based on a clutch of initial reviews that highlighted a few racy bits about Gandhis possibly sexual affection for a young Jewish architect Hermann Kallenbach,and his less-than-immediate solidarity with blacks in South Africa. These are only fleeting mentions in the book,as many reviewers acknowledge,and are intended to humanise the Mahatma,rather than detracting from his tremendous achievements but that hasnt stopped the flood of self-righteous fury in India. Maharashtra and Gujarat,the most easily excitable states,were the first to announce the ban,but Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily has assured the public that the Centre is also considering a ban.
This furore is depressingly predictable. Partly,it is because we prefer nationalist history to sound like a bedtime story of the good and the bad,and no one is so unambiguously good as Gandhi. Then again,in a country where Article 377 that criminalised homosexuality has only recently been struck down,sexuality is not a matter of airy speculation. When the suggestion is made of the sainted Gandhi,some controversy was only to be expected. However,Gandhi did not abide by these limits. His letters and conversations reveal him as consumed with the idea of bodily discipline,matters of diet,hygiene and sexuality he truly experimented with these ideas,rather than accepting the givens of his culture,even if he returned to an idealised vegetarianism and chastity. Its a pity that those who are so protective of his halo now do not possess that capacity to think for themselves.
