Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India by Joseph Lelyveld: book review

America journalist, Joseph Lelyveld, has written a book outing political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi. The book, Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India (2011), has provoked a wave of anger across India. Lelyveld suggests, in his book, that Gandhi was bisexual. He cites Gandhi’s and Hermann Kallenbach’s correspondence, and claims that his bisexualism was the reason behind his decision to leave his wife and move in with the architect and bodybuilder Kallenbach.

This is only a small part of the book, but it is a warts-and-all revelation about the positive and even more about the negative aspects of his personality – what made him great, and what made him human. It details a historical biography of Gandhi (1869-1948) and his politics and philosophy and, the author notes, his fantasies of an ideal world. It describes his metamorphosis from an English-educated lawyer in business suits to the figure most known to readers – the leader in a loincloth.

More interesting is Lelyveld’s documentation of the development of Gandhi’s philosophies that lead to his defining concepts of “satyagraha” and “ahimsa”– mass civil disobedience and non-violence, culminating in civil rights and freedom.

The book has been banned in many Indian states in a country where homosexual activity was a criminal offense until 2009. Gandhi’s grandson denounces the ban, saying that his grandfather advocated for, and was the epitome of, freedom of speech.

[The photograph shows a statue of Mohandas Gandhi in Glebe Park, Canberra, Australia]

Comments

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. ...

The acacia thorn trees of Kenya

There are nearly 800 species of acacia trees in the world, and most don’t have thorns. The famous "whistling thorn tree" and the Umbrella Thorn tree of Kenya are species of acacia that do have thorns, or spines. Giraffes and other herbivores normally eat thorny acacia foliage, but leave the whistling thorn alone. Usually spines are no deterrent to giraffes. Their long tongues are adapted to strip the leaves from the branches despite the thorns. The thorny acacia like dry and hot conditions. The thorns typically occur in pairs and are 5-8 centimetres (2-3 inches) long. Spines can be straight or curved depending on the species. MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Suda...

Shindi: the Georgian Cornelian cherry

The Cornelian cherry – shindi in Georgian – is a fruit with medicinal and decorative properties. It was grown from ancient times, according to the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS). It is also commonly called the European cornel. It is native to southern Europe from France to Ukraine as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, and Syria. The Cornelian cherry tree ( Cornus mas ) can be grown in orchards, but it is often seen in the forests of Georgia where it grows up to 1,350 metres above sea level. It is a medium to large deciduous tree, growing from 5-12 metres tall. The flowers are small with four yellow petals in clusters, which flower in February and March. The Cornus mas has three botanical varieties: (1) var. typica Sanadze with cylindrical red fruits, (2) var. pyriformis Sanadze with pear-shaped red fruits, and (3) var. flava vest with yellow fruits. The fruits are oblong red drupes about 2 centimetres ...

FEAST OR FAMINE

Search This Blog