Hey Ram! Bisexual Bapu?

The reaction in our country to the latest biography of Bapu is so very typical. The hue and cry that was raised over it was not at all unexpected. After all, in which other country in the big wide world do they ban books and films at the drop of a hat? The book in question is, ‘Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India’, by the Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Joseph Lelyveld. The author has put under the scanner Gandhi’s relationship with his German friend, Hermann Kallenbach, with whom he had lived for four years. He has highlighted the "special bonds" these two men had shared with each other. This has been construed as “intimacy” between them in the Western media.

Obviously, the language Bapu has used in his letters addressed to Kallenbach has tickled the imagination of reviewers of the book. It has made them speculate that Bapu may well have been a bisexual! It made some to even conclude, glibly, going by irresponsible newspaper headlines in the UK and the US, that Gandhi actually abandoned his wife to live with his male lover. Understandably, Indians are outraged. But then, are we not overreacting? Have our 'netas' who have called for an immediate ban on it, cared to read even excerpts of the book? Are we not capable of debate based on logic and reason? Can we not call the bluff of those, who betray a superficial understanding of the complex and multifaceted personality that Gandhi undoubtedly was, by taking them on intellectually?

After all, Lelyveld himself has clarified publicly, and for the record, that he did not brand Gandhi either a racist or a bisexual in his book. He went on to state that the word, “bisexual” does not figure anywhere in his entire book. Besides, the letters he has quoted from have been in library archives for decades, and open to public scrutiny. Sudhir Kakar, a psychoanalyst, who has written about Gandhi's sexuality and reviewed some of his correspondence with Kallenbach, said he did not believe the two men were lovers. "It is quite a wrong interpretation," Kakar has stated. "The Hindu idea is that sexuality has this elemental energy, which gets dissipated. If it can be sublimated and contained, it can give you spiritual power. Gandhi felt his political power really came from his celibacy, from his spiritual power.” This is Kakar’s take on it, which may well have been the case.

So then, the “father of our nation” was not a bisexual, as claimed by some who have got it all wrong in their decadent minds. Great! I wonder, though, do our leaders need to be perfect in the conventional sense of the term? Should they be incapable of the follies and foibles that normal human beings can fall prey to? The problem with us is that we accord iconic status to our leaders and celebrities. We deify them. We condition ourselves into accepting a larger-than-life image of them, which is of our own making. This national tendency, or cultural trait if you prefer, is what makes us feel so uncomfortable when new light is shed on old facts. This is what makes us squirm when someone even so much as hints at the humanity of our heroes, implying their inherent imperfections, and we are instantly up in arms. 

It is sacrilege. It is utterly blasphemous to cast aspersions on the character or motives of national heroes whom we have elevated to demi-god status. To think of it, even if Bapu did indeed fall for his German friend, who happened to be a body builder, does it detract from his unparalleled contribution to the national movement of India? In any case, many of his practices aimed at sublimating his sexuality were controversial. Some of them may even be repugnant to people of other cultures. So, it makes me wonder what the fuss is all about. It is time we grew up a bit.

I’d like to conclude with what Gandhi himself had said once, in reaction to being addressed as “mahatma”. He did not accept the tag. In fact, he dismissed it outright and preferred to call himself, “alpatma”. Gandhi was realistic enough to accept his limitations as a human being. Unfortunately, his followers were not able to grasp this reality.