A vow tested
September 18, 2024
Gandhi’s mother, Putlibai, worried about her youngest child going off to college in the big city of London. Just 18 years old, he was determined to make the trip and become a barrister, thus preparing himself for a lucrative career in courtrooms.
In the opening chapter of his autobiography, Gandhi describes his mother as “deeply religious. … She would take the hardest vows and keep them without flinching. … To keep two or three consecutive fasts was nothing to her.” From this we get a picture of the influence she had on his life. His father died when he was sixteen, leaving Putlibai to give or withhold permission for him to spend three years in London.
Putlibai’s concerns rose from stories told of other young men who had gone to London. Some were unfaithful to the wives they had been given in childhood; some ate meat and drank liquor in violation of Hindu tradition. Would her little boy fall in the same trap? To ease her mind, a family friend and Jain monk had him take a solemn oath to live up to his mother’s expectations. “I vowed not to touch wine, women, and meat,” Gandhi wrote. “This done, my mother gave her permission.”
The passengers on his voyage north to London were not supportive. The upcoming cold, they warned the young man who had never known anything besides the temperate climate of India, would require the warmth of liquor for survival. Eating meat would also be necessary. A Mr. Jeffreys, who Gandhi describes as “very kind,” repeatedly pressured him to eat dinner with the other passengers instead of subsisting on his vegetarian meals in private. The young man refused.
On September 18, 1888, Gandhi arrived at the port of Brindisi in Italy. This was the tipping point, he was warned, where the cold would require meat and alcohol. These he continued to decline, but the third part of his oath was now tested. He wrote in his London diary that a pimp approached him, offering to take him to “a beautiful girl of 14.”
The proposal caught him off guard. His writing shifts to the second person, whereby any future travelers using his diary as a guide would be advised. “You are at once puzzled. But be calm and answer boldly that you don’t want her and tell the man to go away and thereby you will be safe.”
Safe, Gandhi continued the rest of the way to London, where, to the best of my knowledge, he never broke his three vows to his mother. However, he was never able to report his success. After arriving back in India in July 1891, he learned she had died shortly after hearing news of his graduation.
Have you been tempted to break a vow?