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@leewind Mohandas Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach were soul mates! ##queerhistoryiseverywhere ##queer ##historybuff ##gaypride ##love ##lgbtq 4 keys
♬ Bloom - Troye Sivan
Four Keys...
1)
Soul Mates
And it's not just me, or the Pulitzer-prize winning biographer Joseph Lelyveld who said it... Gandhi himself said it!
One of the letters Mohandas wrote Hermann in 1914 included this line,
"We can therefore but go forward as far forward as our legs will carry us and no farther and still be together, one soul and two bodies."
2)
Upper House and Lower House
These were nicknames Mohandas and Hermann used in their letters to each other. Mohandas was "Upper House" and Hermann was "Lower House."
3)
The love contract
Gandhi had trained in England as a lawyer, and on July 29, 1911 he wrote up a contract between him and Hermann, pledging
"...more love and yet more love between the two houses ~ such love as, they hope, the world has not seen."
Hermann signed the contract.
4)
More than a footnote in history.
If Gandhi was in love with another guy, a Jewish guy at that, does it help us understand his giant breakthrough better? That Mohandas Gandhi was the one who wrote in 1911 in his "Triumph of Satyagraha",
"Let people's religions be different... You worship facing one way and I worship facing the other. Why should I become your enemy for that reason? We all belong to the human race; we all wear the same skin; we hail from the same land."
This was a giant step forward in humanity's compassion towards others with different religious beliefs. Could it be more than co-incidental that Mohandas loved Hermann while he had this insight? I think so.
There's so much of our LGBTQ heritage to discover! Queer history really is everywhere.
The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,
Lee
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