Mahatma Gandhi’s German-Jewish Friend
By Dr Syed Amir
Bethesda , MD
Although long an iconic figure in India, Mahatma Gandhi assumed a saintly aura following his assassination in 1948 at the hand of a Hindu fanatic, Nathuram Godse. His name and philosophy of non-violence have become synonymous with human benevolence and both are respected and celebrated around the world. In India today, Gandhi is revered by people of all political shades and persuasions, even the Hindu fundamentalists.
The wide popularity of the 1982 film, Gandhi, directed by Richard Attenborough in which Ben Kingsley portrayed Gandhi, played an important role in introducing him to the public in the West. The scene in the film of his being thrown out of his first class compartment from a train at Pietermaritzburg railway station in South Africa because he was not white made a lasting impression on millions. The event is said to have changed the course of his life. The South African Government has now erected a Gandhi statue where the station used to be to commemorate the occasion.
It may be difficult today to visualize that Gandhi was not always universally revered in India. Especially, during and following the turbulent days of the country’s independence and partition, when bloody communal riots broke out in a frenzy of madness. Hindu extremists hated him. They were upset at his perceived bias in favor of Indian Muslims and his attempts to speak out in defense of that hapless minority. While he vigorously condemned the riots and appealed to both Hindus and Muslims to stop the madness, his exhortations fell on deaf ears. Even his fasts unto death only temporarily dampened the prevailing fires of hatred and fanaticism.
Gandhi’s assumption of the leadership of the independence movement in India came quite late. Shortly after his return from England in 1891, where he was trained as a lawyer, he was invited to South Africa by a group of Muslim businessmen who needed his expertise to settle some legal disputes. Only 23 years old, he intended to stay there for a year, but ended up spending 21 years; this period witnessing his involvement in and leadership of various political movements against racial discrimination policies of the Government of South Africa. During his extended stay in South Africa, Gandhi refined and perfected techniques of non-cooperation and peaceful resistance (Satyagraha) applied against the white rule which had reduced the status of both Indians and the native African population to second- or third-class citizenship.
Not especially religious during his early life, Gandhi, while in South Africa, seems to have associated extensively with white evangelical Christian missionaries and is reported even to have once contemplated conversion to Christianity. However, he later denied that he seriously entertained that thought.
In South Africa, Gandhi developed an unusually close friendship with a German Jewish man named Hermann Kallenbach, an architect by profession, with whom for a time he shared a house. He mentioned Kallenbach extensively in his autobiography published in 1925. Kallenbach was much influenced by Gandhi’s philosophy of peaceful resistance and equality of human beings, becoming a disciple and in time adopting many of his peculiar practices. In an attempt to live the life of an impoverished peasant, both gave up drinking milk and subsisted on a diet consisting of only fruits and vegetables. Kallenbach was used to a life of luxury and opulence and was spending a sum of Rs 1200 monthly (a princely sum at the time) on himself, but afterwards his life became so simple that he could live on Rs 120. Gandhi mentions that they got so close that they even started to think alike.
A recent book, Great Soul (Alfred Knopf, New York), by Joseph Lelyveld -- a former editor of the New York Times -- on Gandhi’s life and work has aroused heated controversy in India. The book is not a comprehensive biography in the conventional sense, as it only focuses on certain periods of Gandhi’s life and work. However, unlike many other biographies, it provides some fascinating and insightful details of his work in South Africa, a subject that is often overshadowed by his subsequent achievements during India’s freedom struggle.
The one revelation in Lelyveld’s book that raised much uproar in certain sections of the population in India is Gandhi’s unusually intimate association and friendship with Kallenbach. There has been some speculation about the exact nature of the relationship of Gandhi with Kallenbach, and whether it went beyond close friendship. Some Indian leaders have accused Lelyveld of implying that Gandhi was bisexual. However, Lelyveld maintains that the relationship although intense was entirely platonic, devoid of any physical intimacy. He blames the Indian politicians of ignorance as they denounced his book without reading it. Despite such clarifications, Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of the Gujarat, notorious for his anti-Muslim, Hindu extremist views, has banned the book in Gandhi’s home state. The ban is ironic, since Modi’s entire political philosophy and character would have been abhorrent to the Indian leader, who campaigned against prejudice and bigotry all his life.
The close friendship between the Indian leader and the Jewish architect out-lasted Gandhi’s permanent move from South Africa to India. They left South Africa together in 1914, bound initially for England, with Kallenbach planning to settle in India. The plans, however, did not materialize. The First World War had broken out in Europe and, although Gandhi tried his level best, no one in India, including the Viceroy, was willing to take the risk of granting permission to a German national to take up residence in India. Kallenbach was shipped to an internment camp in the British Isles and Gandhi returned to India without him. Their correspondence indicates that the close friendship continued, and Gandhi deeply missed the company of his friend. They did not meet again until 1937, some 23 years later.
Kallenbach was profoundly moved by the plight of his fellow Jews under Nazi Germany, and unsuccessfully attempted to convince Gandhi that his advice to Jews to offer peaceful resistance against Hitler’ atrocities would not work. Gandhi, however, was not persuaded. Kallenbach died in 1945 in South Africa, and left a significant portion of his fortune for the welfare of the Indian community in that country. The fascinating story of a magnificent and unusual friendship between two individuals coming from vastly different backgrounds ended with the death of Kallenbach.
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