Book
Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India
Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India is a book by Joseph Lelyveld. It is banned in the state of Gujarat (where Gandhi was born) on 31 March 2011.
Description
About the work
Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India is a book by Joseph Lelyveld. It is banned in the state of Gujarat (where Gandhi was born) on 31 March 2011.
Its interest lies partly in the way literary or informational writing gets collapsed into a public-morality problem. As a book, it can be read not only for subject matter but for the way form, tone, and circulation make a text feel dangerous, intimate, or politically usable to anxious officials.
It also matters as part of a wider censorship history in India. The present page is a dossier starter built from source-tracked ban records; the surviving note currently says: The biographical book was claimed to have that Mahatma Gandhi was a bisexual, but its author Joseph Lelyveld denied this claim. It is banned in the state of Gujarat (where Gandhi was born) on 31 March 2011. The Union. More publication history, translations, and close reading can be added later.
Overview
Why it was banned
Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India entered censorship debates as a book associated with morality, print scandal, and sexuality. In the current dossier, the main state objections cluster around obscenity and public morality.
The earliest event currently captured here is 2011 in India, where Government of Gujarat banned publication, sale, or possession. The biographical book was claimed to have that Mahatma Gandhi was a bisexual, but its author Joseph Lelyveld denied this claim. It is banned in the state of Gujarat (where Gandhi was born) on 31 March 2011. The Union. The biographical book was claimed to have that Mahatma Gandhi was a bisexual, but its author Joseph Lelyveld denied this claim. It is banned in the state of Gujarat (where Gandhi was born) on 31 March 2011. The Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily hinted that.
This entry is still incomplete: more jurisdictions, court orders, and translated justifications should be added over time.
This page is intentionally incomplete. The ban history is a starter dataset, not a final census of every jurisdiction or decree.
Counter and critical readings
Context, rebuttals, and criticism
- Banned Books: Literature Suppressed on Sexual Grounds Dawn B. Sova
Surveys the legal and moral language used to suppress books as obscene.
- Banned Books: 387 B.C. to 1978 A.D. Anne Lyon Haight
Useful for seeing how obscenity law and censorship habits changed over time.
- 100 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature Nicholas J. Karolides, Margaret Bald, and Dawn B. Sova
A compact reference on how censorship systems moved across states, churches, and courts.
Ban history
Known government actions
| Date | Jurisdiction | Action | Reason | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | India | banned publication, sale, or possession | The biographical book was claimed to have that Mahatma Gandhi was a bisexual, but its author Joseph Lelyveld denied this claim. It is banned in the state of Gujarat (where Gandhi was born) on 31 March 2011. The Union. | The biographical book was claimed to have that Mahatma Gandhi was a bisexual, but its author Joseph Lelyveld denied this claim. It is banned in the state of Gujarat (where Gandhi was born) on 31 March 2011. The Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily hinted that. |
Sources
Harvested references for this page
- Wikipedia: List of books banned in India reference partial
- Wikipedia REST summary API database partial
- Banned Books: Literature Suppressed on Sexual Grounds book partial
- Banned Books: 387 B.C. to 1978 A.D. book partial
- 100 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature book partial