Daughter Of Midnight - The Child Bride of Gandhi. Arun Gandhi
to commit.
The whole family was concerned about Mohandas. Kasturbai could tell from her talks with her sisters-in-law. Lakshimidas and Karsandas had planned to support Mohandas financially only as long as he was a student. Now that he had brought his costly English education back to India, they expected him to use it, and assume responsibility for a major part of the family expenses. This had become a matter of increasing urgency because Lakshimidas, the family’s principal breadwinner, had suffered a setback in his own career.
While Mohandas was in London, Lakshimidas had been appointed, through the influence of his Uncle Tulsidas, to an undemanding but remunerative position as secretary to the crown prince of Porbandar. Lakshimidas’ duties had required only occasional trips to Porbandar. His wages had greatly enhanced the family income, and an even more important post seemed to be in prospect when the young prince became the Rana. As it turned out, the heir to Porbandar’s throne was a profligate who, unbeknown to Lakshimidas, had made off with some of the crown jewels from the state treasury. There were questions about this by the new British political agent who had recently arrived in Porbandar. It was a British resident’s duty to prevent local royalty from converting state moneys into private wealth. The young crown prince claimed he had acted on the advice of his secretary. As a result, Lakshimidas had lost the job, the income, and the promise of a better position to come.
Kasturbai knew all about these worries. Yet Mohandas seemed totally oblivious and unaware of any household problems and seemed unconcerned about his obligations to his brothers. He had made no move to seek a suitable appointment, or find a well-paying position or earn any money whatsoever. All his attention was focused on her: Kasturbai. Kasturbai knew the strength of the attraction Mohandas felt for her, but she now wondered if she didn’t also serve as a distraction for her husband. Was he seeking diversion by both their quarrels and lovemaking and ignoring matters of far greater consequence? She realised that the time had come for her to speak up.
One night, in the privacy of their own bedroom, she confronted Mohandas. She reminded him of his debt to his brothers and spoke about the on-going household expenditures. These costs, she pointed out, had increased with their Western innovations, and the changes he had insisted upon. What Lakshimidas needed now was help from him. Kasturbai had never expressed her opinions so openly before. By the time she finished, Mohandas was indignant — indignant and shaken.
The next day, without explanation, Mohandas sent Kasturbai off on the train with Harilal to visit her parents in Porbandar.
“Perhaps only a Hindu wife would tolerate such hardships,” my grandfather wrote many years later, in discussing his relationship with my grandmother during the early decades of their marriage. “And that is why I have regarded women as an incarnation of tolerance. A servant wrongly suspected may throw up his job, a son in the case may leave his father’s roof, and a friend may put an end to the friendship. The wife, if she suspects her husband, will keep quiet. If the husband suspects her, she is ruined. Where is she to go? And I can never forget or forgive myself for having driven my wife to that desperation.”
I also admire my grandfather’s forthright (and oft-repeated) admissions of his own offences as a jealous and domineering husband. But I believe his portrayal of my grandmother’s reactions to this jealousy and domination may have been distorted by his urgency to condemn his own shortcomings. Indeed, we find that Bapu has done Ba a disservice in his autobiographical writings by his frequent depictions of her as ever meek and submissive. Such characterisations of Ba have been widely accepted and repeated by Gandhi biographers. But in my view she was never as spineless and long-suffering, as tolerant of abuse, as altogether helpless and desperate, as Bapu (and his biographers) would have us believe. That she may sometimes have appeared to be so was due more to the circumstances of her life than to the nature of her temperament.
I base this conclusion on my own memories and on the recollections of others who knew her well and on my grandfather’s correspondence with the family. Speaking apparently from experience, he sometimes cautions against incurring Ba’s displeasure. In a long letter written to my father from a South African prison in 1909, for example, Bapu advises 16-year-old Manilal, who was temporarily in charge of farm and family matters at Phoenix Settlement, on everything from household finances, to diet tips, to recommended readings, and counsels him to “cheerfully bear Ba’s ill temper”.
In truth, it was Kasturbai, not Mohandas, who had learned how to bear a spouse’s ill temper, and to do so cheerfully. Certainly this must have been the case in that autumn of 1891 when she was “banished” to Porbandar shortly after Mohandas’ return from England. To Kasturbai, the trip would have seemed like a holiday. She was eager to see her parents again and have them see their grandson. Visits had been difficult during the years of Mohandas’ absence, but now, with the excommunication ban lifted there were no household complications. Travel between Rajkot and Porbandar was simpler now, too, since the railroad had come to Kathiawar. She had sensed that Mohandas’ main problem was with himself, not her. A short vacation, a separation, would give him breathing space — time to think about his future, perhaps do something about it, and to get over his displeasure with her. She was confident he would insist on her early return, and all would be well.
Kasturbai was not surprised, therefore, when Mohandas sent for her within a month after her departure. (Or, as Mohandas reported in his autobiography, “I consented to receive her back only after I had made her thoroughly miserable.”)
She and Harilal returned happily to Rajkot where she found, to her satisfaction that things had changed for the better. No more lessons, no more suspicions, no more quarrels, and only a new seriousness between them. And a new tenderness on Kasturbai’s part, as she learned more of her husband’s true worries and insecurities.
Mohandas confided his fears to Kasturbai one night, not long after her return from Porbandar. She listened attentively, though his explanations seemed addressed as much to himself as to her. He had now turned his full attention to getting started in his career, something he admitted he had been avoiding. He had explored the idea of starting a practice in Rajkot, but he felt he would be inviting ridicule if he did, and for good reason — in spite of his three years of study in England, he felt unqualified to practice law in India.
“Who will be fool enough to employ a person like me,” Mohandas asked. “One who doesn’t even have the knowledge of a law clerk?”
Although he was well versed in the Common Law, well read in Roman Law, he knew nothing whatsoever about Hindu and Muslim Law. A home-trained vakil, or law clerk, such as his brother Lakshimidas, was far more familiar with Indian law, yet he, as an English-educated barrister, would normally be expected to charge fees ten times as high as a vakil. That, he declared, would only add the sins of arrogance and fraud to his offence of ignorance.
Kasturbai consoled him as best she could, and beseeched him to tell his brothers of his misgivings and seek their advice. He had done just that, he said. And then he disclosed his plan. He and Lakshimidas had agreed that he should go to Bombay for a time. There were already too many lawyers and not enough cases in small provincial towns like Rajkot and Porbandar. But in the city of Bombay there would be many opportunities. There he could study, become acquainted with Indian law, gain some much-needed court experience, even earn some fees. He would set up a household there, he said, but to save on expenses, Kasturbai and Harilal would have to stay in Rajkot for the time being. They might perhaps join him later.
Again, they were to be separated. But now Kasturbai fully understood why this was necessary. In Bombay, Mohandas could fulfill the family’s dream and become a successful advocate.
A few weeks later, when she sent her husband off to the city to seek his fortune, Kasturbai gave him her good wishes. But she did not give him her news. Only when he was more settled, and when she was absolutely certain it was true, would she let him know that she was pregnant again.
For Mohandas, he was still feeling uprooted after the years in London, still unsure of his own abilities, still grief-stricken because of his mother’s death, (and still guilt-ridden, it would seem) by a memory of the circumstances of his father’s death. This was coupled with his inability to free himself from what he called the “shackles of lust” — the next six months of his life were bleaker