A book released last year stirred an unusual controversy on whether Mahatma Gandhi had a gay lover.

"Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India," written by Pulitzer-Prize winning author Joseph Lelyveld, includes passages that some interpreted as hinting that Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach, a German-Jewish architect, were more than just very good friends. (This included a rather inflammatory review published in The Wall Street Journal.)

The...