Was Gandhi Gay? A new biography by Pulitzer Prize winner Joseph Lelyveld is generating outrage because it seems to suggest that India’s revered activist left his wife for another man.
At the center of the story are a series of letters written by Mahatma Gandhi to his friend Hermann Kallenbach, a German-Jewish bodybuilder. The two lived together for two years in South Africa.
The Indian state where Gandhi was born has voted to ban the book, and some are calling on the central government to block distribution in India. Lelyveld says his book does not allege Gandhi was gay or bisexual but that he was quote “celibate and deeply attached to Kallenbach.”
