Harilal Gandhi

• 1. Introduction

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  Harilal Gandhi appeared at his father's funeral in such poor health that few of the mourners recognized him. He was the eldest son of Mahatma Gandhi and Kasturba Gandhi, born into a family whose name is known across the world. Yet his own face had become a stranger's. How did the first child of such a household drift so far from it? Why did he break with his family, and why did he later take a different name? And what was the cost, to him and to his parents, of being the son of a man the nation looked to for guidance?

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• 2. The Little Gandhi

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  On the 23rd of August 1888, Harilal Mohandas Gandhi was born, shortly before his father left for England for higher studies. The boy stayed in India with his mother. Three younger brothers followed: Manilal, Ramdas and Devdas.

  Between 1908 and 1911, Harilal was jailed six times as a satyagrahi, a nonviolent resister in the independence movement. His willingness to accept those sentences earned him a nickname, Chhote Gandhi, which means Little Gandhi.

  He wanted something else as well. His father had once trained to become a barrister, and Harilal hoped to go to England and do the same. His father firmly refused. He believed a Western-style education would be of no help in the struggle against British rule over India. The refusal opened a rift between father and son, and in 1911 Harilal answered it by renouncing all family ties.

  By then he had been married for five years, and the loss of that marriage would reshape him.

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• 3. Gulab and the Children

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  In 1906, Harilal married Gulab Gandhi, and the couple had five children. There were two daughters, Rami and Manu, and three sons, Kantilal, Rasiklal and Shantilal. Rasiklal and Shantilal died young.

  The year 1918 brought the influenza pandemic, and Gulab died during it. Harilal grew detached from his surviving children after her death.

  He thought of marrying his late wife's sister, Kumi Adalaja, who was a child widow. The marriage never took place. This disappointment led to a further decline, and he gradually became an alcoholic.

  Seven grandchildren came from the line. Four came through his daughter Rani: Anushrya, Prabodh, Neelam Solanki and Navmalika. Two came through Kantilal, named Shanti and Pradeep, and one, Urmi, came through Manu. One of these descendants would later write the book that gave his story to the public.

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• 4. A Borrowed Name

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  In 1925, Harilal lent his father's name to a Calcutta business called All India Stores. One investor in the firm, a Muslim man from Lyallpur, feared the venture was bogus. He sent a legal notice to Young India, the newspaper edited by Mahatma Gandhi.

  The father's public reply was blunt. He wrote that Harilal "was indeed his son but his ideals and mine are different and he has been living separately since 1915". The words drew a clear line between the famous man and the son who had used his name.

  The line was never completely cut. Through the years Harilal stayed in touch with his father, though only sporadically, sometimes through people they both knew. That contact continued right up to 1947.

  A decade after the Calcutta affair, the letters between them grew far harsher.

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• 5. The Letters of 1935

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  In June 1935, Mahatma Gandhi wrote Harilal a letter accusing him of "alcohol and debauchery". Across these letters, the father said that his son's problems were harder for him to bear than the struggle for an independent India.

  One letter went further and accused Harilal of rape. The victims it pointed to were either his sister-in-law or his daughters.

  The correspondence did not stay private forever. In 2014, three of the letters that Mahatma Gandhi had written to Harilal in 1935 were offered for auction.

  Within a year of those letters, Harilal took a step that turned his private turmoil into a public matter.

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• 6. Abdullah and Hiralal

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  In May 1936, at the age of 48, Harilal publicly converted to Islam and named himself Abdullah Gandhi.

  Mahatma Gandhi answered in his journal Harijan. He said he had no objection if the conversion were sincere. But he believed Harilal had accepted Islam for material benefit rather than real faith. He also felt that the people who arranged it had exploited his son's weaknesses.

  Kasturba Gandhi was deeply distressed. On the 27th of September 1936, she wrote to Harilal to express her anguish. She also wrote separately to his Muslim associates, condemning the part they had played.

  In November 1936, Harilal gave up Islam. A ceremony conducted by the Arya Samaj returned him to Hinduism, and he took yet another name, Hiralal.

  Twelve years of his life remained.

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• 7. The Last Night

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  On the night of the 18th of June 1948, Harilal died of tuberculosis at a municipal hospital in Mumbai, now known as the Sewri TB Hospital. He was 59. It was four months after his father's assassination.

  His death certificate is preserved in the archives of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation at Vakola. It records that he was admitted after being found unconscious in Kamathipura.

  He never told the hospital staff that he was Gandhi's son. His family learned that he had been hospitalised only after he had died.

  Decades later, his estrangement from his father would be turned into a play and a film.

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• 8. Stage, Screen and Page

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  The troubled bond between Harilal and his father is the subject of Gandhi, My Father, which exists as both a play and a film. The film was released on the 3rd of August 2007. Feroz Abbas Khan directed it, Anil Kapoor produced it, and Akshaye Khanna played Harilal.

  Critics reviewed the film positively, but it failed at the box office.

  Khan also wrote a play, Mahatma vs. Gandhi, which differs from the film but shares a similar theme. A Marathi play, Gandhi virudh Gandhi, also explores the subject.

  The fullest account on the page comes from a family member. Neelam Parikh, the daughter of Ranibehn, the eldest of Harilal's children, wrote his biography. She called it Gandhiji's Lost Jewel: Harilal Gandhi.

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