By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
India Speaks DailyIndia Speaks Daily
  • समाचार
    • देश-विदेश
    • राजनीतिक खबर
    • मुद्दा
    • संसद, न्यायपालिका और नौकरशाही
    • अपराध
    • भ्रष्टाचार
    • जन समस्या
    • English content
  • मीडिया
    • मेनस्ट्रीम जर्नलिज्म
    • सोशल मीडिया
    • फिफ्थ कॉलम
    • फेक न्यूज भंडाफोड़
  • Blog
    • व्यक्तित्व विकास
    • कुछ नया
    • भाषा और साहित्य
    • स्वयंसेवी प्रयास
    • सरकारी प्रयास
    • ग्रामीण भारत
    • कला और संस्कृति
    • पर्यटन
    • नारी जगत
    • स्वस्थ्य भारत
    • विचार
    • पुस्तकें
    • SDeo blog
    • Your Story
  • राजनीतिक विचारधारा
    • अस्मितावाद
    • जातिवाद / अवसरवाद
    • पंचमक्कारवाद
    • व्यक्तिवाद / परिवारवाद
    • राजनीतिक व्यक्तित्व / विचारधारा
    • संघवाद
  • इतिहास
    • स्वर्णिम भारत
    • गुलाम भारत
    • आजाद भारत
    • विश्व इतिहास
    • अनोखा इतिहास
  • धर्म
    • अध्यात्म
    • सनातन हिंदू धर्म
    • पूरब का दर्शन और पंथ
    • परंपरा, पर्व और प्रारब्ध
    • अब्राहम रिलिजन
    • उपदेश एवं उपदेशक
  • पॉप कल्चर
    • इवेंट एंड एक्टिविटी
    • मूवी रिव्यू
    • बॉलीवुड न्यूज़
    • सेलिब्रिटी
    • लाइफ स्टाइल एंड फैशन
    • रिलेशनशिप
    • फूड कल्चर
    • प्रोडक्ट रिव्यू
    • गॉसिप
  • JOIN US
Reading: Indian government spends £700,000 to buy letters which ‘prove national hero Gandhi was gay’
Share
Notification
Latest News
स्वरा के ‘पाकिस्तानी लहंगे’ की यात्रा की स्तुति करता भारतीय मीडिया
बॉलीवुड न्यूज़
नितिन गडकरी को फिर जान से मारने की धमकी, 10 करोड़ रुपए की डिमांड ! 
अपराध
माफिया डॉन अतीक अहमद के ठिकाने से मिले 80 लाख रुपये और 9 पिस्टल,  दो गुर्गे !
अपराध
दर्द रहित मृत्यु ! 
संसद, न्यायपालिका और नौकरशाही
‘16 अगस्त 1947’ का हिन्दी ट्रेलर मंगलवार रिलीज हुआ, दर्शकों का अच्छा रिस्पॉन्स
बॉलीवुड न्यूज़
Aa
Aa
India Speaks DailyIndia Speaks Daily
  • ISD Podcast
  • ISD TV
  • ISD videos
  • JOIN US
  • समाचार
    • देश-विदेश
    • राजनीतिक खबर
    • मुद्दा
    • संसद, न्यायपालिका और नौकरशाही
    • अपराध
    • भ्रष्टाचार
    • जन समस्या
    • English content
  • मीडिया
    • मेनस्ट्रीम जर्नलिज्म
    • सोशल मीडिया
    • फिफ्थ कॉलम
    • फेक न्यूज भंडाफोड़
  • Blog
    • व्यक्तित्व विकास
    • कुछ नया
    • भाषा और साहित्य
    • स्वयंसेवी प्रयास
    • सरकारी प्रयास
    • ग्रामीण भारत
    • कला और संस्कृति
    • पर्यटन
    • नारी जगत
    • स्वस्थ्य भारत
    • विचार
    • पुस्तकें
    • SDeo blog
    • Your Story
  • राजनीतिक विचारधारा
    • अस्मितावाद
    • जातिवाद / अवसरवाद
    • पंचमक्कारवाद
    • व्यक्तिवाद / परिवारवाद
    • राजनीतिक व्यक्तित्व / विचारधारा
    • संघवाद
  • इतिहास
    • स्वर्णिम भारत
    • गुलाम भारत
    • आजाद भारत
    • विश्व इतिहास
    • अनोखा इतिहास
  • धर्म
    • अध्यात्म
    • सनातन हिंदू धर्म
    • पूरब का दर्शन और पंथ
    • परंपरा, पर्व और प्रारब्ध
    • अब्राहम रिलिजन
    • उपदेश एवं उपदेशक
  • पॉप कल्चर
    • इवेंट एंड एक्टिविटी
    • मूवी रिव्यू
    • बॉलीवुड न्यूज़
    • सेलिब्रिटी
    • लाइफ स्टाइल एंड फैशन
    • रिलेशनशिप
    • फूड कल्चर
    • प्रोडक्ट रिव्यू
    • गॉसिप
  • JOIN US
Have an existing account? Sign In
Follow US
  • Website Design & Developed By: WebNet Creatives
© 2022 Foxiz News Network. Ruby Design Company. All Rights Reserved.
India Speaks Daily > Blog > समाचार > English content > Indian government spends £700,000 to buy letters which ‘prove national hero Gandhi was gay’
English content

Indian government spends £700,000 to buy letters which ‘prove national hero Gandhi was gay’

Courtesy Desk
Last updated: 2022/01/05 at 11:42 AM
By Courtesy Desk 23 Views 7 Min Read
Share
7 Min Read
SHARE

By Graham Smith for Mail Online 09:25 GMT 13 Jul 2012 , updated 00:55 GMT 01 Feb 2016. A year after a controversial biography of Mahatma Gandhi claimed he was bisexual and left his wife to live with a German-Jewish bodybuilder, the Indian government has bought a collection of letters between the two men days before they were to be auctioned.

India paid around £700,000 (60million rupees) for the papers, which cover Gandhi’s time in South Africa, his return to India and his contentious relationship with his family.

The auction was to be held at Sotheby’s in London on Tuesday but was called off at the last minute.Lovers? Mahatma Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach sit either side of a female companion. The Indian government has bought a collection of letters between the two men days before they were to be auctioned

Lovers? Mahatma Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach sit either side of a female companion. The Indian government has bought a collection of letters between the two men days before they were to be auctioned

More Read

JAINA can help USA in launching ENFORCEABLE “rule-based liberal new global order” only when becomes representative body of Jains in USA
Can you please tell me a little bit more about Kailasa?
Who is behind the occupation of Osho Ashram?
Press Note: Kailasa Establishes Sister City Relationships for Humanitarian Services and Global Peace

The documents will now be placed with the National Archives of India in New Delhi.

They previously belonged to relatives of Hermann Kallenbach, a German-born Jewish architect who met Gandhi in South Africa in 1904 and was impressed by his ideas.

Last year, a Gandhi biography by author Joseph Lelyveld called Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi And His Struggle With India detailed the extent of his relationship with Kallenbach.

It claimed that the leader of the Indian independence movement was deeply in love with Kallenbach.

Mr Lelyveld denied that his book said Gandhi was bisexual. But Gandhi’s home state of Gujarat banned it as an ‘insult’ to the father of the nation.

Most of the correspondence, which spans five decades from 1905 to 1945, is from family, friends and followers of Gandhi, but there are also 13 letters written by him to Kallenbach.

They reference Gandhi’s early political campaigns and the illness of his wife Kasturba.

He wrote in one letter: ‘I no longer want to be angry with her so she is sweet… She had a few grapes today but she is suffering again. It seems to be me she is gradually sinking.’

In another, written before his return to India from South Africa, Gandhi wrote: ‘I do all my writing squatting on the ground and eat invariably with my fingers. I don’t want to look awkward in India.’

Indian historian Ramchandra Guha discovered the letters at the home of Kallenbach’s grand-niece, Isa Sarid.Almost auctioned: The documents previously belonged to relatives of Kallenbach, a German-born Jewish architect who met Gandhi in South Africa in 1904 and was impressed by his ideas

Almost auctioned: The documents previously belonged to relatives of Kallenbach, a German-born Jewish architect who met Gandhi in South Africa in 1904 and was impressed by his ideas

Gandhi and Kallenbach became constant companions after they met in Johannesburg in 1904.

Among the most illuminating of the documents are dozens of letters written by Gandhi’s sons which provide details of his life in India, particularly in the period immediately after his return, when he lived in relative obscurity.

‘Father is becoming more and more awful,’ read one incomplete letter probably written by Harilal, his eldest son.

‘It would not be strange if a time may come one of these days when either those who are living with Father might have to go or he might leave us all not being able to stand our life.’

India has in the past complained bitterly about private auctions of Gandhi’s belongings, saying they insulted the memory of a man who rejected material wealth.

A senior official at the ministry of culture in New Delhi said: ‘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.’

Sotheby’s had put a pre-sale estimate of between £500,000 and £700,000 on the collection.

But the sale was pulled after Indian authorities agreed to purchase the entire archive for around £700,000 (60million rupees).

Sotheby’s said in a statement: ‘The Gandhi-Kallenbach archive… has been sold in a private transaction to the Indian government.’

Mr Lelyvel’s book caused much controversy when it was published last year.Gandhi and Kallenbach (middle row, centre) pose for a picture at Tolstoy Farm, South Africa in 1910. They became constant companions after they met in Johannesburg in 1904

Gandhi and Kallenbach (middle row, centre) pose for a picture at Tolstoy Farm, South Africa in 1910. They became constant companions after they met in Johannesburg in 1904

Mahatma Gandhi speaks in New Delhi
Great Soul - Joseph Lelyveld book on Gandhi

Gandhi (left) and Kallenbach lived together for two years in a house in South Africa. Joseph Lelyveld’s controversial biography Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi And His Struggle With India (right) was published last year

According to the book, Gandhi allegedly told Kallenbach: ‘How completely you have taken possession of my body. This is slavery with a vengeance.’

Kallenbach was born in Germany but emigrated to South Africa where he became a wealthy architect. 

Gandhi was working there and Kallenbach became one of his closest disciples.

The pair lived together for two years in a house Kallenbach built in South Africa and pledged to give one another ‘more love, and yet more love… such love as they hope the world has not yet seen’.

At the age of 13 Gandhi had been married to 14-year-old Kasturbai Makhanji, but after four children together they split in 1908 so he could be with Kallenbach, the book says.

At one point he wrote to the German: ‘Your portrait (the only one) stands on my mantelpiece in my bedroom. The mantelpiece is opposite to the bed.’

Although it is not clear why, Gandhi wrote that vaseline and cotton wool were a ‘constant reminder’ of Kallenbach.

He nicknamed himself ‘Upper House’ and his lover ‘Lower House’ and he vowed to make Kallenbach promise not to ‘look lustfully upon any woman’.

‘I cannot imagine a thing as ugly as the intercourse of men and women,’ he later told him.

They were separated in 1914 when Gandhi went back to India – Kallenbach was not allowed into India because of the First World War, after which they stayed in touch by letter.

As late as 1933 he wrote a letter telling of his unending desire and branding his ex-wife ‘the most venomous woman I have met’.

credit link

Related

TAGGED: Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi
Courtesy Desk January 4, 2022
Share this Article
Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Whatsapp Telegram Print
Previous Article ललित नारायण मिश्र की हत्या में आया था इंदिरा गांधी के OSD का नाम ?
Next Article #VideoOnISD Lalit Narayan Mishra का खात्मा 46 साल बाद भी है एक गुत्थी! Indira Gandhi के OSD पर गई थी शक की सूई!
Leave a comment Leave a comment

Share your Comment Cancel reply

Stay Connected

Facebook Like
Twitter Follow
Instagram Follow
Youtube Subscribe
Telegram Follow
- Advertisement -
Ad image

Latest News

स्वरा के ‘पाकिस्तानी लहंगे’ की यात्रा की स्तुति करता भारतीय मीडिया
नितिन गडकरी को फिर जान से मारने की धमकी, 10 करोड़ रुपए की डिमांड ! 
माफिया डॉन अतीक अहमद के ठिकाने से मिले 80 लाख रुपये और 9 पिस्टल,  दो गुर्गे !
दर्द रहित मृत्यु ! 

You Might Also Like

English content

JAINA can help USA in launching ENFORCEABLE “rule-based liberal new global order” only when becomes representative body of Jains in USA

March 20, 2023
English content

Can you please tell me a little bit more about Kailasa?

March 20, 2023
English content

Who is behind the occupation of Osho Ashram?

March 18, 2023
English content

Press Note: Kailasa Establishes Sister City Relationships for Humanitarian Services and Global Peace

March 17, 2023
//

India Speaks Daily is a leading Views portal in Bharat, motivating and influencing thousands of Sanatanis, and the number is rising.

Popular Categories

  • ISD Podcast
  • ISD TV
  • ISD videos
  • JOIN US

Quick Links

  • Refund & Cancellation Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Advertise Contact
  • Terms of Service
  • Advertise With ISD
- Download App -
Ad image

Copyright © 2015 - 2023 - Kapot Media Network LLP.All Rights Reserved.

Removed from reading list

Undo
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Register Lost your password?