So I'm pretty sure the human evolutionary process has stalled (or maybe regressed): The Indian government just shelled out $1.28 million to buy over 1,000 letters and documents that might reveal Gandhi was ... wait for it ... gay. That's right, we apparently are living in a time when a major governing body deemed the million-dollar cover-up of a long-dead icon's possible homosexuality a necessary and justifiable expense.
Of course, the Indian government won't come out (ha!) and say that's why they bought the archive of correspondence between Gandhi and architect Hermann Kallenbach. According to a senior official at the Ministry of Culture in New Delhi, "These (papers) are of huge importance to India to carry out research on the Gandhian view on various things, that is why we decided to purchase them."
Okay, fair enough. Until ...
Until you take a look at a passage from Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Joseph Lelyveld's book Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India, in which Lelyveld describes those "important" papers. Gandhi's words to Kallenbach stand alone as a fairly convincing argument, even without additional author input (explaining that Gandhi left his wife for Kallenbach, for example):
Your portrait (the only one) stands on my mantelpiece in my bedroom. The mantelpiece is opposite to the bed ... how completely you have taken possession of my body. This is slavery with a vengeance.
He also asked Kallenbach to promise not to "look lustfully upon any woman."
Okay, so Gandhi had a boyfriend. Probably. This is a problem because ... why, exactly? Because Gandhi's message of non-violence is for heterosexuals only? Am I missing something?
Hey, I have a much more cost-effective idea for the Indian government. Why not just go on a hunger strike?
Why do you think anybody would have a problem with Gandhi being gay?
Image via Strt's Photos/Flickr
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Comments 13
Ok..I must admit that in allll of the ways I have thought about him.. the idea of him as a sexual being never quite entered my mind.. I mean I guess logically I know we all are sexual beings to some degree but if Gandhi was gay or not realllllllly does not play on the top of relevant facts about him...unless maybe i wanted to point him out as a role model to homosexual youth.
And? Gandhi's sexual orientation is relevant how?
Ive always loved Gandhis beautiful choice of words.. who cares if he was speaking to a man or a woman.
The guy did bed-share with naked women to prove he had control of his impulses (or something like that), so if he was gay it kinda throws that bit out the window.
I don't care if Ghandi was gay, except... I would care if the homosexual community co-opted his message as "theirs" because of that homosexuality. Just like you point out that his messages were not for heterosexuals only, neither are they exclusively for the homosexual community. If his orientation serves as a simple footnote, or a "hey, didja know...?" and is left there, I really don't care.
I don't want it to politicize his message, is my point.
Funny, who thinks of him as sexual anyway? Even if he slept with that man, that doesn't also make him gay necessarily. It may have been a transitory part of his spiritual journey.