From: "Frank F Conlon" <conlon@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
To: <H-ASIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 3:34 PM
Subject: H-ASIA: Gandhi Comments - Ramchandra Guha "Experiments with Facts"
> H-ASIA
> April 7, 2011
>
> "Experiments with Facts" by Ramchandra Guha
> *************************************************************************
> From: Ramachandra Guha <ramguha@gmail.com>
>
> Below a piece of mine on Lelyveld/Gandhi published in the Hindustan
> Times--
> do post on H Asia.
>
> Ram Guha
>
> http://www.hindustantimes.com/Experiments-with-facts/H1-Article1-681676.aspx?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4d9b62c11
> c3ba519%2C0
>
>
>
> Ramachandra Guha
> April 05, 2011
>
> Experiments with facts
>
> Narendra Modi may never have banned Joseph Lelyveld's Great Soul had the
> books editor of the Wall Street Journal been as discerning as his
> counterpart
> in the New York Times. The Manhattan dailies carried reviews on the same
> weekend, but these could not have been more different in style or
> substance.
> The Times reviewer, who has himself written fine books on India,
> judiciously
> assessed the strengths and weaknesses of Lelyveld's approach, situated
> Gandhi historically, and — in the wake of the controversy that followed,
> this may be the crucial point — did not mention Hermann Kallenbach at all.
>
> The Journal, on the other hand, gave the book to a British reviewer whose
> powers of judgement are such that he once spoke of Tony Blair as a
> latter-day
> Winston Churchill. An apologist for imperialisms past and present, who has
> defended water-boarding by the CIA and expressed solidarity with Boer
> racists,
> he used the platform to mount a character assassination of a great
> opponent
> of the British Empire. Quoting words and phrases out of context, he
> characterised Gandhi as a 'sexual weirdo, a political incompetent and a
> fanatical faddist…'. Two paragraphs of his review were about Gandhi's
> friendship with Kallenbach, described by the reviewer as 'the love of his
> life… for whom Gandhi left his wife in 1908'.
>
> This review appeared on March 26; two days later, the British tabloid
> Daily Mail ran a story with the headline: 'Gandhi "left his wife to live
> with a male lover" new book claims.' Clearly inspired by the Journal
> story,
> it called Gandhi 'bisexual' and said 'after four children together [with
> Kasturba] they split up so he could be with Kallenbach…'.
>
> The foolish decision to ban Great Soul in parts of India was provoked not
> by the book itself, but by tendentious misrepresentations by Britons still
> not reconciled to the loss of their Empire. However, I write this from the
> United States, with a copy of Great Soul at my side. The two questions one
> must
> ask, in order of importance, are: How much of the book is devoted to
> Gandhi's
> friendship with Kallenbach? And what does the book say about the subject?
>
> By my count, Kallenbach appears on 33 of Great Soul's 349 pages. I think
> Lelyveld exaggerates the significance of Kallenbach in Gandhi's life in
> South
> Africa. In his book, Henry Polak appears only fleetingly, whereas
> Pranjivan
> Mehta is not mentioned at all — although these two men were easily as
> important
> to Gandhi at this time. This is compounded by the sin of anachronism, the
> tendency to assess male friendships of a 100 years ago through the lens of
> a progressive New Yorker of today. Lelyveld privileges things said now to
> the written evidence of the past. Someone in Ahmedabad tells him
> Kallenbach
> and Gandhi were a 'couple'; someone in Australia claims the relationship
> was
> 'homoerotic'. These remarks (likewise informed by a contemporary
> sensibility)
> should have been disregarded; what he should have perhaps laid far more
> stress
> on is a remark made by Kallenbach himself, where, writing to his brother
> in
> June 1908, he notes that ever since he met Gandhi, 'I have given up my sex
> life'.
>
> Lelyveld is stretching the evidence in claiming that Gandhi's friendship
> (he
> uses the term 'relationship') with Kallenbach was 'the most intimate' of
> his
> life. The further claim that 'Gandhi, leaving his wife behind, had gone to
> live with a man' is even more tenuous. The fact was that Gandhi had to be
> in
> Transvaal to organise the Indians in that province. Kasturba and the boys
> stayed at the ashram in Natal, being visited by Gandhi as often as his
> work
> permitted.
>
> The friendship between these two men was not sexual, not even 'homoerotic';
> it was, as Gandhi himself described it, that between brothers. While they
> lived in the same house, Gandhi's commitment to brahmacharya was matched
> by Kallenbach's own. Much later (although Lelyveld does not mention or
> perhaps know this) Kallenbach broke their common vow of celibacy by having
> a sexual relationship — with a woman.
>
> Lelyveld's arguments may be anachronistic, but his prose is dignified and
> restrained. Moreover, Kallenbach goes unmentioned on 90% of the book's
> pages,
> where matters of social and political import are given their due. Indians,
> aware only of the misrepresentations in the tabloid press, need to ponder
> these words from the book's last paragraph: "In India today, the term
> 'Gandhism' is ultimately synonymous with social conscience; his example —
> of courage, persistence, identification with the poorest, striving for
> selflessness — still has a power to inspire…"
>
> One might thus reasonably view Joseph Lelyveld as the hapless victim of,
> on the one hand, reactionary British journalists, and, on the other,
> opportunistic Indian politicians, who seek to camouflage their own
> betrayal of the Mahatma's ideals by proclamations of reverence to his
> memory.
>
> Two of Gandhi's grandsons — themselves writers of distinction — have
> urged the government to allow the book to be published and circulated
> in this country. What is at stake here is both the maturity of Indian
> nationalism and the credibility of Indian democracy. Are our heroes so
> weak that we need bullies masquerading as patriots to protect them? Is
> our democracy so fragile that we can't allow free debate on individuals
> and processes? The Lelyveld case has put our national politicians
> (Manmohan Singh,
> Sonia Gandhi, LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Prakash Karat — all of them) on
> test.
> The censorship of ideas, while congenial to Islamic theocracies, military
> dictatorships, and one-party communist regimes, sits strangely and
> uncomfortably with our democratic claims. The answer to a book is another
> book — not a ban.
>
> ( Ramachandra Guha is the author of _India After Gandhi: The History of
> the
> World's Largest Democracy_ )
>
> *The views expressed by the author are personal.
>
> http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/681676.aspx
> © Copyright 2010 Hindustan Times
>
> *********************************************************************************
> H-ASIA: Communicating about Asian Studies Scholarly concerns since
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