GANDHI’S GAY LOVER IN SOUTH AFRICA
Controversy is raging over claims in a new book that Mahatma Gandhi fell in love with a German Jewish man while living in South Africa.
Reviews of the book Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi And His Struggle With India, by Pulitzer Prize winner Joseph Lelyveld, about the iconic figure’s life have highlighted Gandhi’s relationship with the architect and amateur bodybuilder Hermann Kallenbach.
The two lived together in Johannesburg for two years, before Ghandi returned to India in 1914. Gandhi was married at the age of 13 to 14 year old Kasturbai Makhanji, from whom he split in 1908 – apparently so that he could be with Kallenbach.
Lelyveld quotes a number of passages from Gandhi’s intimate letters to Kallenbach, including, “how completely you have taken possession of my body. This is slavery with a vengeance”.
The book also claims that Gandhi named himself “Upper House” and Kallenbach “Lower House.”
According to Lelyveld, “He made Lower House promise not to ‘look lustfully upon any woman.’ The two then pledged ‘more love, and yet more love . . . such love as they hope the world has not yet seen’.”
Gandhi also told Kallenbach: “…your portrait (the only one) stands on my mantelpiece in my bedroom.”
Kallenbach, who emigrated from Germany to South Africa, met Ghandi in 1904 and donated a farm near Johannesburg to Ghandi’s cause. They went on to become “soulmates”, in Ghandi’s words.
and Kallenbach in 1913
According to Wikipedia, Kallenbach planned to accompany Gandhi to India in 1914, but with the outbreak of World War I, he was detained in England because of his German citizenship. Kallenbach visited Gandhi twice thereafter, in 1937 and in 1939.
Lelyveld’s book also reportedly suggests that Ghandi had at least one racist outburst while in South Africa.
“We were marched off to a prison intended for K*****s. We could understand not being classed with whites, but to be placed on the same level as the Natives seemed too much to put up with. K*****s are as a rule uncivilised,” Gandhi is quoted as saying.
But Lelyveld has come out insisting that that the book has been misread: “I do not allege that Gandhi is racist or bisexual. The word ‘bisexual’ nowhere appears in the book,” he said in a statement.
“The word ‘racist’ is used once to characterise comments by Gandhi early in his stay in South Africa… the chapter in no way concludes that he was a racist or offers any suggestion of it,” he added.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is known as the father of independent India and is revered for his philosophy of satyagraha; the resistance to tyranny through nonviolent mass civil disobedience.
He worked as a lawyer in South Africa, where he was jailed for a time, and helped in the local Indian community’s struggle for civil rights before returning to India. Gandhi lived modestly, wearing clothes made by himself, was a vegetarian and fasted for long periods as a means of protest against British colonial rule of India.
He was a proponent of women’s rights, fostered interaction between religious and ethnic groups and is often referred to as Mahatma, which is Sanskrit for “Great Soul”. Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 at the age of 78.
Gandhi??. Book clearly written by a racist. Article clearly written by a racist for mamba
Huh?. Please explain your remark? In what way is this article racist?
Agreed with Rolando. yes, how?
Ghandi. So who actually cares – all these struggle things are so nauseating
???. Seconded if true!I’d wait for those letters to be verified first though
Gandhi. What a load of CRAP! How could a man who fought for the rights and wellbeing of Untoucables ever utter words like that….even if Jesus told me this, i would refuse to believe it. Stupid Moron Lelyveld…curl up and die under a rock and if you ae dead already…rot in Hell…..
Ghandi did use the K-word. Hi there,
HOW WE LOVE OUR PEDASTALS!!!
I first got to know about Gandhi’s racist slant in a TV show called “Penn & Teller’s Bullshit!”
Do your research on the internet… Gandhi was a man, NOT a GOD!
It is well known that Gandhi did use the K-word. He even wrote articles for Indian community papers on apartheid degredaded Indians to the same status as “RAW kaffirs”…
You have to remember Indian society is till today base on an unforgiving caste system, so it is only logical that he would have had this reference frame work.
Penn & Teller’s Bullshit will also inform you that…
Mother Theresa believed she would be “brought closer to god, by their (the poor in her Calcutta shelter) suffering” wich resulted in no improvement of their suffering & living conditions, but the spread of her convents and theology…
And Martin Luther King was a womanizer and heavy drinker of note…
So idolize the work of the person, but not the person him / herself
BS. MAMBAONLINE just LOVES promoting RACIST shit. You have been accused of being racist before. I defended you….no longer….
What are you talking about?. Why is Mamba promoting racism? This story was reported around the world by leading media. What is racist about the story? Are you shooting the messenger because you don’t like what is being said by someone else? Use your head man!
Mohandas K.. You insolent fools!
This piece is taken out of context by those ignorant and insecure. The lack of understanding content and context is clearly apparent. One has to understand history in order to make such comments. Even the greatest of liberals used the K word to describe black people. It was used then and it had no derogatory connotation merely to describe a set of people. The use of the phrase native is also shunned. But I find the term charming actually.
Sol Plaatje [Founder member and first General Secretary of the South African Native National Congress, which would later become the African National Congress (for those ignorant and illiterate)] even used the word to describe himself:
“He chirpily sent himself up – when reeling with seasickness on board ship he used to de_clare his “raw kaffir constitution” would see him through.”
Gandhi was no racist, he was simply a product of his time. He was opposed to the cast system so this notion is absurd. Besides no Black person is to be called an Indian and do not become “untouchable” or “Brahmin” upon becoming Indian. Stop being so damned sensitive and become educated in the process. Read a little before you write a lot.
We always knew he was bent! And we always knew Kallenbach was bent! We also know that having sex with little girls & boys is taught in the Jewish Talmud. Oh yes! What a pair of perverts. And that Mountbatten fellow was bent also! Maybe they had a threesome?