29-05-2025
Why Did Mahatma Gandhi Cut Off Ties With His Eldest Son Harilal?
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Bright, articulate, and full of ambition, Harilal Gandhi dreamt of following in his father's footsteps by travelling to England to study law and becoming a barrister.
Few examples in history of a father-son fallout are as complex as the rift between Mahatma Gandhi and his eldest son, Harilal. What unfolded between the two was not merely a family disagreement but a profound ideological and emotional chasm.
Harilal Gandhi, born in 1888, was the eldest of Gandhi's four sons. Bright, articulate, and full of ambition, Harilal dreamt of following in his father's footsteps by travelling to England to study law and becoming a barrister. But his aspirations clashed sharply with his father's evolving philosophy.
By the early 20th century, Gandhi had begun to distance himself from Western values and formal education systems, increasingly advocating for indigenous practices, self-reliance, and spiritual discipline. For Gandhi, sending Harilal to study in England would be tantamount to endorsing the very colonial mindset he sought to free India from.
Harilal, however, saw this denial not as idealism but as personal betrayal. To him, it was an unjust suppression of his dreams. The father-son bond began to fray.
The first signs of rebellion were private disagreements, but soon, Harilal began publicly opposing his father's principles. He refused to participate in Gandhi's freedom movements and instead wrote critical essays in newspapers, accusing his father of hypocrisy, championing justice for a nation while allegedly denying it to his own kin.
Gandhi, in turn, became increasingly exasperated with his son's defiance. In The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Gandhi briefly touched on this emotional fracture.
Over the years, Harilal drifted further from his father's world. He descended into alcoholism, financial ruin, and scandal. He borrowed money in Gandhi's name from businessmen, social leaders, and even extended family, leaving behind a trail of embarrassment. At one point, Gandhi had to publicly declare that Harilal had no right to use his name for personal gain.
Then came the incident that stunned not only the Gandhi family but the nation at large. In 1936, Harilal converted to Islam and adopted the name 'Abdullah Gandhi'. The move, splashed across newspaper headlines, was widely interpreted as a symbolic rejection of his father's legacy. Though Harilal later reconverted to Hinduism, the damage was irreversible.
Ramachandra Guha, in his book Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, writes that the Mahatma was devastated by the conversion, which he saw not merely as a spiritual decision but a final severance of familial ties. 'You are my biggest failure," Gandhi once wrote to Harilal, words heavy with sorrow and disillusionment.
Harilal later went on to marry Gulab Gandhi, a woman of quiet resilience who endured years of hardship, including his spiraling addictions and unstable behaviour. Despite her efforts, she succumbed to the plague in 1918. Harilal was left with five children, most of whom led lives marked by financial and emotional instability.
By the time of Gandhi's assassination in 1948, Harilal was a broken man, living in poverty and near-anonymity on the streets of Bombay. He died just months after his father, from complications related to his alcoholism and declining health. Few attended his funeral.
Today, the story of Harilal Gandhi stands as a somber testament to the emotional toll that ideals and expectations can exact within families.
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