Daughter Of Midnight - The Child Bride of Gandhi. Arun Gandhi
culture. But Mavji Dave, a pragmatist, reminded the family of their lofty aspirations for the youngest Gandhi brother, and assured them that the study of English law was the surest route to high office in British-ruled India.
“Think of that barrister, who has just come back from England,” he said. “He could have the dewan’s post for the asking.” Mavji Dave spoke of his own son, recently returned from three years of study at the Inns of Court in London where all students seeking admittance to the English bar were trained. He said Indian students were finding the course there not too difficult. His son could give Mohan advice and notes of introduction.
Mohan wondered if he could ever live up to his family’s expectations. He found the prospect of law studies in England instantly irresistible, an answer to all his problems. The rest of the family acknowledged the value of English education, but they reacted cautiously. Lakshimidas and Karsandas wondered where they would ever find the four or five thousand rupees needed, according to Mavji Dave, for three years of study in England. Putliba, who had heard that young Indians in London were tempted to drink wine, eat meat, smoke cigars, and consort with strange women, worried about the religious risks involved in allowing a young man to go abroad alone. To Kasturbai, who had no notion of just where England was, the entire idea was incomprehensible. Besides, her mind was elsewhere.
The debates about Mohan’s future were still unresolved on the day Kasturbai went into labour. The family waited anxiously for the delivery. This time all went well. When Kasturbai gave birth to a healthy baby boy, the entire household rejoiced. Relatives and friends were notified, feasts were prepared, gifts presented, sweets distributed. Six days after the baby’s birth, after performing the prescribed purification rites, Kasturbai emerged from the birthing room for the observance of a solemn religious ritual. According to Hindu belief, the Lord writes down a child’s destiny on the sixth day of life. A name given to the infant on that day helps the Lord identify the child.
The son born to Kasturbai and Mohandas was given the name of Harilal which means “the Son of God”.
Important as these events were to Kasturbai, they provided only a momentary diversion from worry for the rest of the family — and particularly for Mohandas. In the weeks following Harilal’s birth, his mother struggled with her religious misgivings about sending a son to England, Mohandas and his brothers feverishly sought to raise funds for the trip. His mood alternated between elation and depression.
Mohan could persuade his mother Putliba to consent, but would he be able to convince Mr. Frederick Lely, the British political agent and advisor to the Rana of Porbandar, to grant him a scholarship?
Mr. Lely was aware of the Gandhi family’s estimable record of civic service to the state of Porbandar, and might reasonably be expected to grant a state scholarship to Mohan. It was surely within his power to do so. In each of British India’s more than six hundred princely states the Hindu or Muslim rulers were entitled to retain their wealth and their thrones, only if they accepted the “advice” of a British political agent or resident — officials such as Frederick Lely in Porbandar. Actually, the British political agents were the de facto rulers of the princely states.
With high hopes, Mohan went by appointment to Mr. Lely’s residence to present his cause. It was his first personal encounter with British officialdom. Upon approaching Mr. Lely, he bowed politely as Indians would to an elder, palms together. But, even before he could explain the reason for his visit he was curtly interrupted. “No help can be given to you now,” Mr. Lely declared, murmuring something about financial aid for study in England being available only to those who had already earned a college degree.
With that, Mr. Lely turned his attention to weightier matters, unaware, as the British historian Geoffrey Ashe put it, “that he had just stood face to face with the ruin of the Empire.”
This ignominious dismissal left Mohan more determined than ever to go to England. On his return to Rajkot, he and his brothers redoubled their efforts to find 5,000 rupees somewhere, anywhere. Mohan wrote to distant cousins requesting money. One or two indicated they might help, but reneged on their promises when caste leaders objected. Lakshimidas went to local officials asking for assistance on his brother’s behalf. The British political agent in Rajkot, a Colonel Watson, offered nothing more than a letter of introduction to someone in England. The local ruling prince, the Thakore of Rajkot, presented Mohan with a signed photograph of himself. Even Sheik Mehtab, as friend and former schoolmate of both Karsandas and Mohan, was recruited into the fundraising campaign; he wrote a letter to one of his own cousins asking for a loan for Mohan — to no avail.
There remained one other possibility. Mohan suggested the family mortgage Kasturbai’s jewellery. A woman’s jewels were her property. Kasturbai was pained by the suggestion not so much because she was attached to her jewels but because secretly she dreaded the separation. She feared that she would lose her husband to western culture. She also knew going to England was something he considered very important. She resolved to bear whatever came without complaint.
Putliba relented only after consulting a Jain monk Becharji Swami, another trusted family friend and now Putliba’s main spiritual adviser. He suggested that Mohan make a solemn vow to his mother in his presence that he would not touch wine, women, or meat while he was away. Putliba believed in vows, and she believed in her son. He could go now, with her blessings.
On August 10, 1888, friends and relatives gathered at the Gandhi home in Rajkot to honour Mohandas as he set out for Bombay. He was accompanied by his brother Lakshimidas who was safeguarding the passage money. Several years later, writing for an obscure English journal, The Vegetarian, Mohandas depicted this emotion-filled occasion:
“My mother was hiding her eyes, full of tears, in her hands, but her sobbing was clearly heard. I was among a circle of some fifty friends. If I wept, they would think me too weak; perhaps they would not allow me to go to England. Therefore I did not weep, even though my heart was breaking. Last, but not least, came the leave-taking with my wife, it would be contrary to custom for me to see or talk to her in the presence of friends. So I had to see her in a separate room. She, of course, had begun sobbing long before I went to her and stood like a dumb statue for a moment. I kissed her, and she said, ‘Don’t go.’ What followed I need not describe.”
Lakshimidas had planned to book passage for Mohan on a voyage leaving for England in August, but on arriving in Bombay, where they stayed in the home of their sister Raliatben and her husband, they heard that a ship had recently gone down in stormy seas. Already uneasy about ocean travel, Lakshimidas accepted the advice of knowledgeable travellers that Mohan’s departure should be delayed a few weeks until the rough monsoon seas had calmed. Since he could not remain away from his work that long, Lakshimidas left Mohan in Bombay with Raliatben and her husband Vrandavandas, to whom he also entrusted the passage money.
No sooner had Lakshimidas departed than word came from the Modh Vania caste elders in Bombay that the council, headed by a distant relative of the Gandhis, disapproved of Mohan’s trip. No Modh Vania member had ever crossed the “black waters” to England, and none could go there without compromising their religion. Summoned to appear before the council, Mohan somehow mustered the courage to object. “I have already promised my mother to abstain from the things you fear most. I am sure my vows will keep me safe.”
The council was unconvinced. But Mohan, in one of the first of his many eventual refusals to submit to the irrational exercise of authority, held firm. He would not agree to cancel his plans.
The head of the council then pronounced judgment: “This boy shall be treated as an outcast from today. Whoever helps him or goes to see him off at the dock shall be punished.”
Mohan was excommunicated! The edict would affect his entire family, but the most immediate effect was on his brother-in-law Vrandavandas. For fear that he too would lose caste, Raliatben’s husband refused to turn over the passage money to Mohan — even after receiving a letter from the faithful Lakshimidas authorising him to do so. Mohan himself resolved this final impasse. He borrowed passage money from a friend who could later be repaid by Vrandavandas. In that way, Vrandavandas could truthfully claim not to have helped his brother-in-law.
On September 4,