HELL IN PARADISE: `KASHMIR`

Kashmir is one of the worst neglected cases of humanitarian crisis. Kashmir – best known as the sore point of relations between Pakistan and India and perhaps the biggest concern of becoming a nuclear flashpoint between the two countries. Two wars and one low intensity conflict have been fought over Kashmir between India and Pakistan. Violence in Kashmir has engulfed hundreds and thousands of innocent Kashmir’s in the last six decades. The history of violence in Kashmir began in 1931, when Kashmiris started taking a stand against the autocratic rule of the Dogras. It was immensely aggravated again when Maharaja Hari Singh, at the time of partition in 1947, acceded to India instead of Pakistan without the consent of its Muslim-dominated population and hence setting the benchmark for instability and violence seen in years to follow.

Indian government spends £700,000 to buy letters which ‘prove national hero Gandhi was gay’

India paid around £700,000 (60million rupees) for the papers, which cover Gandhi’s time in South Africa, his return to India and his contentious relationship with his family.


The auction was to be held at Sotheby’s in London on Tuesday but was called off at the last minute.


Lovers? Mahatma Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach sit either side of a female companion. The Indian government has bought a collection of letters between the two men days before they were to be auctioned
The documents will now be placed with the National Archives of India in New Delhi.


They previously belonged to relatives of Hermann Kallenbach, a German-born Jewish architect who met Gandhi in South Africa in 1904 and was impressed by his ideas.


Last year, a Gandhi biography by author Joseph Lelyveld called Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi And His Struggle With India detailed the extent of his relationship with Kallenbach.

• Letters between Mahatma Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach are said to shed light on their ‘loving relationship’
• They are among archive of documents which cover Gandhi’s time in South Africa, his return to India and his contentious relationship with his family
• Papers were due to have been auctioned at Sotheby’s in London this week
• A year after a controversial biography of Mahatma Gandhi claimed he was bisexual and left his wife to live with a German-Jewish bodybuilder, the Indian government has bought a collection of letters between the two men days before they were to be auctioned.

It claimed that the leader of the Indian independence movement was deeply in love with Kallenbach.


Mr Lelyveld denied that his book said Gandhi was bisexual. But Gandhi’s home state of Gujarat banned it as an ‘insult’ to the father of the nation.