The Son Who Failed to Shine in the Face of His Father's Brilliance

Harilal Gandhi was one of the sons of Gandhi who faced a lot of tragedies in life. At the end of his life, he was so slim and his appearance turned into that of an alcoholic, that nobody recognized him at his father's funeral.

Harilal? Abdullah? Hiralal? Gandhi! Source: Wikimedia Commons

What would you expect on parenting from a person who is called the Father of the Nation? Addressed as Bapu by India and remembered as a guiding light in the darkness of the long night on the subcontinent, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi fathered four sons in his life but did a terrible job at bringing them up!

Gandhi had a certain fixed way of leading his life in the ideologies he had discovered through the experiences he gained in his life. For his children, he attempted to choose the easy way out - serve them in plate what he found out was the truth of life. But it didn't fare well with the kids. They were not free enough to choose what to make of their lives and what came out was nowhere near the sons of a Mahatma!

Back in 1888, when Gandhi was just leaving for England to study law, Harilal was born. Soon to be the nation's Bapu, he became a father for the first time!

While Gandhi went out in his search for education to the West, Harilal stayed home with his mother, probably listening to the stories of his father who lived across the seven seas!

Children often follow in their father's footsteps and young Harilal tried his best at it. Gandhi had had his experience in the West and law, and it isn't a hidden fact that he never did well at it! So, when the son announced that he wants to be a barrister in England, Gandhi proclaimed that that would never be. Western education wasn't required for the Indian struggle for Independence and to overthrow British rule. He had other plans for his son.

This started a cold war between the father and the son. Harilal became a rebel, never agreed to what his father said and never did as he was directed.

In the end, MK Gandhi said that there were only two people he was never able to convince. One was Mohammad Ali Jinnah at the time of partition and the second was his own eldest son, Harilal Gandhi. Though Harilal spent his life in his father's shadow, most of it was spent disagreeing and quarrelling.

While Gandhi went on succeeding in the battles he fought in the world outside, in his home he lost. It was not long after that Harilal gave in to bad habits. While Gandhi stood for morality and sexual abstinence, Harilal indulged in alcohol and gambling. While Gandhi opposed and boycotted the foreign clothes in the Indian market, Harilal started trading in the same imported British clothes. Gandhi slowly became the nation's father but went on becoming a stranger to his son.

The twist in the tale and the hardest hit happened when the rebel son of a father who spoke of establishing Ram-Rajya and a stout Hindu mother, on the fateful day of 29 May 1936, converted to Islam and changed his name to Abdullah Gandhi.

Later, at the several requests of his mother, he reconverted to Hinduism and this time became Hiralal! The entire tweaking, in the end, remained in the two letters of his name.

In the several letters that Gandhi wrote to his eldest son in his lifetime, there was a constant disappointment and vexation over the son's behaviour. One letter went as far as accusing Harilal/Hiralal of raping his daughter and the troubled life the daughter had to lead due to her father's abuses.

Gandhi felt it easier to fight for the freedom of the country than control his spoiled son.

Gandhi was perhaps the greatest father anyone could ever ask for, but he was not the father Hiralal wanted. He never could become one. He was a father of four sons with high expectations, so much so that he became the patriarch and reduced the very independence of his children that he sought for the country, trying to bend them to his ways and his ideas. While becoming the father of the country, Gandhi miserably failed at becoming the father to his children!