These points are lingered over in Andrew Roberts's review of Great Soul at the Journal. Lelyveld may not have set out to write a piece of character assassination, but Roberts writes like Gandhi wronged him personally. Most of Roberts's 2,000-word review is given over to instances of Gandhi contradicting himself or acting gracelessly.

A few of the points Roberts surfaces are genuinely outrageous, like when he talks about Gandhi bailing out on civil-disobedience campaigns halfway through. "Between 1900 and 1922, Gandhi ­suspended his efforts no fewer than three times," Roberts writes, "leaving in the lurch more than 15,000 supporters who had gone to jail for the cause."

Elsewhere, Roberts comes across as just petty. He points out that "Gandhi denounced lawyers, railways and parliamentary politics, even though he was a professional lawyer who constantly used railways to get to meetings to argue that India ­deserved its own parliament." He notes that "after ­taking a vow against milk for its ­supposed aphrodisiac properties, he ­contracted hemorrhoids, so he said that it was only cow's milk that he had ­forsworn, not goat's." And he calls Gandhi "the archetypal 20th-century progressive ­intellectual, professing his love for ­mankind as a concept while actually ­despising people as individuals."

Other publications don't rag on Gandhi quite so hard. And the revelation about Kallenbach doesn't seem to have made many waves. Mike Vilensky at New York calls the relationship "cute," while Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic simply writes that Gandhi "joins Lincoln in the growing ranks of great gay men in history." (Although, not to nitpick, but since Gandhi also talked about "the organ" becoming "aroused" in the company of women, it would probably be inaccurate to call him gay. See also: these mice.)

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.