Author | Joseph Lelyveld |
---|---|
Language | English |
Subject | Mahatma Gandhi |
Genre | Biography |
Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf (US) Harper Collins India (India) [1] |
Publication place | USA |
Published in English | 29 March 2011 |
Pages | 432 |
ISBN | 0-307-26958-2 |
Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India is a 2011 biography of Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Joseph Lelyveld and published by Alfred A Knopf. [1]
The book is split between the time Gandhi spent in South Africa and his return to India as the Mahatma. [2]
The Legislative Assembly of Gujarat, the lawmaking body of Gandhi's home state, voted unanimously on March 20, 2011, to ban Great Soul because of the Lelyveld’s use of documentary evidence and informed opinion to point to the relationship that Gandhi had developed with a Prussian architect whom the Indian playfully boasted as "having received physical training at the hands of [Eugen] Sandow [the father of modern bodybuilding]". Lelyveld’s inquiry includes quotes from a letter sent by Gandhi to Kallenbach from London in 1909: "Your portrait (the only one) stands on my mantelpiece in the bedroom. The mantelpiece is opposite to the bed… [The purpose of which] is to show to you and me how completely you have taken possession of my body. This is slavery with a vengeance." [3]
Lelyveld has stated that the gay interpretation of his work is a mistake. Lelyveld added: "The book does not say that Gandhi was bisexual or homosexual. It says that he was celibate and deeply attached to Kallenbach. This is not news." [4]
Writing for The New York Times , Hari Kunzru finds Great Soul to be "judicious and thoughtful". Lelyveld's book, he writes, will be revelatory to American readers who may only be familiar with the rudiments of Gandhi's life and for those readers, perhaps especially Indian readers, who are better acquainted with the Gandhi story the book's portrait of the man will still be challenging. [2]
Reports of passages within the book regarding the nature of Gandhi and Kallenbach's relationship prompted the Wall Street Journal to ponder "Was Gandhi gay?" [1] Kunzru for the Times observes that modern readers who are less familiar with the concept of Platonic love may interpret the relationship, in particular their romantic-sounding letters, as indicating a sexually charged relationship. However, he adds that Gandhi in 1906 took a vow of celibacy, which both Gandhi and the people of India saw as a cornerstone of his moral authority. [2]
British historian Andrew Roberts, in writing for The Wall Street Journal while noted that the book gives "more than enough information" about sexual life of Gandhi, Roberts adds that it is "nonetheless well-researched and well-written book." [5]
Indrajit Hazra writing for the Hindustan Times described the book to have weaved "the unreceived narratives with the received one, and in the process presents to the reader a more complete picture of a complex, undoubtedly great man". [6]
Christopher Hitchens writing for The Atlantic wrote that the "book provides the evidence for both readings, depending on whether you think Gandhi was a friend of the poor or a friend of poverty". [7]
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule. He inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā, first applied to him in South Africa in 1914, is now used throughout the world.
Hari Mohan Nath Kunzru is a British novelist and journalist. He is the author of the novels The Impressionist, Transmission, My Revolutions, Gods Without Men, White Tears and Red Pill. His work has been translated into twenty languages.
Joseph Salem Lelyveld was an American journalist. He was executive editor of The New York Times from 1994 to 2001, and interim executive editor in 2003 after the resignation of Howell Raines. He was a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author, and a contributor to the New York Review of Books.
Tushar Arun Gandhi is an Indian author and son of Arun Manilal Gandhi, thus great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi. In March 2005, he led the 75th anniversary re-enactment of the Dandi March. From 2007 to 2012, he was the Goodwill Ambassador of the CISRI-ISP Intergovernmental Institution for the use of Micro-algae Spirulina Against Malnutrition.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was assassinated on 30 January 1948 at age 78 in the compound of The Birla House, a large mansion in central New Delhi. His assassin was Nathuram Godse, from Pune, Maharashtra, a Hindutva activist, a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu paramilitary organization as well as a member of the Hindu Mahasabha.
Lage Raho Munna Bhai is a 2006 Indian Hindi-language satirical comedy drama film written, edited and directed by Rajkumar Hirani, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Abhijat Joshi, and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra under the banner Vinod Chopra Films. A sequel to Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (2003), the film is the second installment of the Munna Bhai series. Sanjay Dutt and Arshad Warsi reprised their roles as Munna Bhai and Circuit, respectively. New additions to the cast include Vidya Balan, Dilip Prabhavalkar and Dia Mirza, while several actors from the original, notably Jimmy Sheirgill and Boman Irani, appear in new roles.
Partap Sharma was an Indian playwright, novelist, author of books for children, commentator, actor and documentary film-maker.
Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule is a book written by Mahatma Gandhi in 1909. In it he expresses his views on Swaraj, modern civilization, mechanisation, among other matters. In the book, Gandhi repudiates European civilization while expressing loyalty to higher ideals of empire. The book was banned in 1910 by the British government in India as a seditious text.
Peter Heehs is an American historian living in Puducherry, India who writes on modern Indian history, spirituality and religion. Much of his work focuses on the Indian freedom fighter and spiritual leader Sri Aurobindo. His publications include twelve books and more than sixty articles in journals and magazines.
Hermann Kallenbach was a Lithuanian-born Jewish South African architect who was one of the foremost friends and associates of Mahatma Gandhi. Kallenbach was introduced to the young Mohandas Gandhi while they were both working in South Africa and, after a series of discussions, they developed a long-lasting association.
Dinanath Gopal Tendulkar (1909–1972) was an Indian writer and documentary film maker. He is most well known as the author of an eight-volume biography of Mahatma Gandhi, titled Mahatma: Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He was also a close associate of Vithalbhai Jhaveri and collaborated for the documentary film, Mahatma: Life of Gandhi, 1869–1948. He died on Monday, June 12, 1972.
LGBTQ people are well documented in various artworks and literary works of Ancient India, with evidence that homosexuality and transsexuality were accepted by the major dharmic religions. Hinduism and the various religions derived from it were not homophobic and evidence suggests that homosexuality thrived in ancient India until the medieval period. Hinduism describes a third gender that is equal to other genders and documentation of the third gender are found in ancient Hindu and Buddhist medical texts. The term "third gender" is sometimes viewed as a specifically South Asian term, and this third gender is also found throughout South Asia and East Asia.
Anant Viththal Keer, known by his alias Dhananjay Keer (1913–1984) was an Indian biographer who profiled many high profile politicians and social activists.
Shimon Lev (Low) (Hebrew: שמעון לב; born August 1, 1962) is an Israeli multidisciplinary artist, writer, photographer, curator and researcher in the fields of Indian Studies, art and literature, religion, and travel. He holds a Doctoral degree on the subject of the mutual influence of the Jewish and Indian cultures. Lev teaches at the Hadassah Academic College.
Bapu: Conversations and Correspondence with Mahatma Gandhi is an autobiographical description of F. Mary Barr's relationship and interactions with Mahatma Gandhi, whom she refers to as Bapu (father). Several of Gandhi's letters to the author, originally an English missionary in India, are included in full. The book was originally published in India in 1949. A revised edition was published in India in 1956. The book has been reviewed in several magazines, and discussed in other books.
The Gandhi family is the family of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi; Mahatma meaning "high souled" or "venerable" in Sanskrit; the particular term 'Mahatma' was accorded Mohandas Gandhi for the first time while he was still in South Africa, and not commonly heard as titular for any other civil figure even of similarly rarefied stature or living or posthumous presence.
The Death and Afterlife of Mahatma Gandhi is a 2014 non-fiction book by Indian writer Makarand Paranjape and published by Penguin Random House. The book is based on the analysis of Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and the situations after his assassination.
Tolstoy Farm was an ashram initiated and organised by Mohandas Gandhi during his South African movement. At its creation in 1910 the ashram served as the headquarters of the campaign of satyagraha against discrimination against Indians in Transvaal, where it was located. The ashram, Gandhi's second in South Africa was named after Russian writer and philosopher Leo Tolstoy, whose 1894 book, The Kingdom of God Is Within You, greatly influenced Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence.