Tag: Hermann Kallenbach

Given the furore about the allegations made of Gandhi's bisexuality and 
relationship with Hermann Kallenbach in Lelyveld's new book, I thought there 
might be some interest in these two articles I wrote for the Times of India's 
Crest edition last Saturday. The first and shorter one is about Kallenbach, who 
deserves to be better known, if not in such a sensational way. Since the Crest 
article online requires subscription, which is annoying even though free, I'm 
posting the full text below: 

More than just a friend 
Kallenbach was for Gandhi nothing as simple as a lover. In the long run, he was 
something rather more important, his first real disciple 
VIKRAM DOCTOR 

Nothing about the relationship between Mohandas Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach 
sounds as strange as the terms they used for each other — Upper House and Lower 
House, respectively. Yet Hanna Lazar, Kallenbach’s niece, who lived with him 
for years, gave a logical explanation for them in a letter to Pyarelal, 
Gandhi’s secretary and biographer. She wrote: “in the English parliament there 
is a Senate = Upper House, and the Executive = Lower House, or the Law Giver 
and the one who carries out the Laws.” This is not quite accurate as a 
description of the English parliament, but her meaning is clear: Gandhi was the 
conceptualiser and Kallenbach the implementer. 

Better than anything else, this shows what Kallenbach was for Gandhi — nothing 
as simple as a lover, but something rather more important in the long run, his 
first real disciple, which is, of course, a relationship that can, of course, 
carry quite a measure of love. Gandhi’s capacity to attract the devotion of 
people was perhaps what really marked him out as a leader from the start, but 
even among them, Kallenbach occupies a special place. Where others were often 
clergymen, teachers or minor tradesmen, Kallenbach was a successful architect 
and a relatively wealthy man. Yet he was willing to put all this aside to 
follow Gandhi. 

The change was remarkable. Gandhi would write that Kallenbach led a life of 
“luxury and extravagance” before they met. He followed Gandhi’s often really 
experimental diets, ometimes only fruits or nuts. He gifted Tolstoy Farm to the 
satyagrahis, helping not just to design their houses, but physically build them 
as well. Because they needed footwear, he learned sandal making, which he 
taught Gandhi — the many sandals that Gandhi would wear and gift during his 
life are thanks to Kallenbach. 

What drove him to all this is a mystery since Kallenbach also had a gift for 
self-containment. This is not just because his letters have not survived. Even 
where one hears his voice directly, for example in an account of the march to 
Transvaal that he wrote for his sister, he does not foreground himself. There 
was much drama during the march, some of it involving him — he was challenged 
to a duel at one point, and faced the fury of other whites who saw him as a 
traitor. Yet he sticks to facts, giving more importance to the logistics, which 
he was in charge of, having to ensure they had food and shelter on their way, 
than to his personal challenges and feelings. 

There was something monkish about Kallenbach, which perhaps might explain his 
lifelong bachelorhood. The only hint he ever gives is in a letter to his 
brother, where he writes that after having met Gandhi he had given up first 
meat, then fish “and for the last 18 months I have given up my sex life”. He 
feels much better for all this, he says, but adds an interesting note: 
“Notwithstanding, I shall change my life, even tomorrow — should I feel this 
way of living should not suit me.” 

>From his childhood in Germany, where he was an athletic youth, to his 
>apprenticeship as a carpenter before becoming an architect, to his years in 
>South Africa, as an architect and then activist, to his internment during WWI 
>in a prison camp for enemy aliens on the Isle of Man, where he worked in the 
>hospital and taught his fellow inmates, to restarting his architectural 
>practice in South Africa, developing a whole suburb, to his support for the 
>kibbutz movement in Israel — always with Kallenbach, the emphasis is on the 
>material and physical, not in an unthinking way, but just willing himself to 
>do what the circumstances required. 

Perhaps the daftest part of the current allegations is the suggestion that 
Gandhi left his family to be with Kallenbach; in fact, it was more like 
Kallenbach was appropriated as an elder family member. He was held in some awe, 
because he did have a temper that could be unleashed and tended to demand 
strict behaviour all around. But he became a mentor to Gandhi’s sons, for 
example, going to fetch Harilal back from Mozambique when he ran away in an 
early revolt. He was particularly close to Ramdas, who lived with him a while, 
but it was Manilal, who Gandhi left in South Africa to continue his work, who 
had the longest association with him. He kept his connection with Gandhi alive 
through letters, and two visits, in 1937 and 1939, living at Wardha and wearing 
a khadi dhoti. 

It was at the last visit where he had a remarkable encounter. Gandhi was 
visited by a Captain Strunk, an associate of Hitler, who worked on the Nazi 
party paper and functioned as a sort of roving agent for the party. Strunk 
seemed to be visiting India partly to see if Gandhi’s views against Western 
civilisation could dovetail with the Nazis. Gandhi listened to him politely, 
and then pointed to Kallenbach who was sitting quietly next to him in a dhoti. 
“Here is a live Jew and a German Jew, if you please,” he said. “I should like 
to understand from you why the Jews are being persecuted in Germany?” Strunk 
was entirely taken aback, and even apologised in a lame way. It was, as always, 
an example of the service Kallenbach could provide just by his quiet presence 
next to Gandhi.
•

• g_b on Kallenbach Vikram D.