htweekend cover story IV SUNDAY HINDUSTAN TIMES, NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 29, 2019

YEARS ON 1869-2019 WHAT THE MAHATMA ATE AND WHY An austere eater, Gandhi GANDHI REMAINED A COMMITTED VEGETARIAN – BY CHOICE – ALL HIS LIFE constantly experimented with his diet. These experiments his was the foundation on eat meat openly, but until that says Gandhi, he became a vegetar- of his closest friends. But he also lost which everything else was moment arrives I will abstain.” But ian by choice (as opposed to being friends – an English family in South were based on his beliefs and built. Gandhi came from a veg- he never ate meat again. Before leav- vegetarian because of family tradi- Africa asked him to stop visiting etarian Gujarati family and ing for England to study law in 1888, tion). them, because their son was begin- part of a deep, spiritual quest Tnever ate meat in his life, he vowed to his mother that he He joined the Vegetarian Society ning to refuse eating meat. except for a brief period as a would not touch meat or liquor. He and made English friends who were Gandhi firmly believed that a schoolboy, when he did so at the urg- kept his word, though vegetarian part of the Society. For a while he meat diet was not good for health, Poonam Saxena ing of his elder brother’s friend who food was hard to come by and he was had a London roommate, Josaiah because meat brought with it the convinced him that the English always hungry. Oldfield, a barrister, who was an “defects of the animals from which it n [email protected] were able to rule over Indians He eventually found a vegetarian active member of the Society. Later, is derived.” But more importantly, because they were meat-eaters. restaurant on Farringdon Street when he was in South Africa, he met his vegetarianism had deep spiri- have been known Gandhi records in his autobiogra- (“the sight of it filled me with the Henry Polak, a British-born Jew, at tual and philosophical underpin- as a crank, faddist, phy that he must have had half a same joy that a child feels on getting the Alexandra Tea Room, the only nings. It was part of his commitment madman,” wrote dozen secret “meat-fests” over a a thing after its own heart”), which vegetarian restaurant in Johannes- to ahimsa, the cornerstone of his Mahatma Gandhi period of one year. also stocked a book that influenced burg. Polak ended up becoming one politics. Eating meat meant doing in his weekly jour- But the fact that he was lying to him deeply: English writer Henry violence to animals, who, he his parents gnawed at his heart. “In Stephens Salt’s Plea for Vegetarian- EATING MEAT MEANT DOING believed, had spirits and souls. Veg- nal, Young India, in their [his parents’] lifetime, there- ism. Gandhi ate his first hearty meal VIOLENCE TO ANIMALS, WHO, etarianism was also a crucial part of “I1929. He was refer- fore, meat-eating must be out of the since his arrival in England there, HE FIRMLY BELIEVED, HAD brahmacharya (see box), which ring to his dietary question. When they are no more and followed it up by reading Salt’s SPIRITS AND SOULS meant exercising self-restraint, in experiments, which lasted and I have found my freedom, I will book from cover to cover. After that, order to control the senses. all his life, and were often so austere they bordered on the ascetic. It has now NO No salt, no pulses Yes to fruits, nuts The milk quandary Why not raw food? become something of a fad Gandhi favoured a low-salt diet. It was a Gandhi loved fruits. For years he was a Gandhi felt that milk makes the brahma- In May 1929, Gandhi attempted a serious principle he followed for years. And fruitarian and subsisted on fruit and charya vow (he had taken the pledge to experiment with eating only raw, itself to say that many of though he liked them, he had read that nuts. But he noticed that this diet often remain celibate in 1906) difficult to uncooked food. A month into the Gandhi’s diet concerns Meat and eggs the “weak-bodied” should avoid pulses. caused friends who he stayed with some observe because milk was partly a experiment, he wrote in his weekly were uncannily contempo- In his autobiography, he recounts a time inconvenience. When he was the guest stimulant. (Unsurprisingly, it was his journal, Young India, “I have lived for rary: his commitment to in South Africa when his wife Kasturba of a friend in Calcutta, he says that all the early mentor, the Jain mystic Raychand, years on uncooked fruit and nuts, but wasn’t well. Gandhi entreated her to give fruits and nuts available in Calcutta were who told Gandhi that “milk stimulated never before beyond a fortnight on vegetarianism; the limit- up salt and pulses. She threw him a ordered for him and the women of the animal passion.”) uncooked cereals and pulses.” Why did he Tobacco challenge: even he would not be able to house stayed up the whole night conduct this experiment? He had an ing of salt; not eating after But this was not the only reason. As give them up. She should have known skinning various nuts. answer: “If it succeeds it enables serious sundown; wanting to be always with Gandhi, there was a moral better. Gandhi stayed away from both men and women to make revolutionary So, on a visit to Hardwar for the Kumbh reason – “We are certainly not entitled to vegan (though, despite his long after they returned to India. “Medi- changes in their mode of living. It frees mela, he took a vow never, while he was any other milk except the mother’s milk best efforts, he couldn’t cally there may be two opinions as to the women from drudgery… the ethical in India, to take more than five articles of in our infancy.” There was also a health Alcohol value of this diet, but morally I have no value of uncooked food is incomparable.” give up milk, eventually food in 24 hours and to finish his last reason – “Both milk and meat bring with doubt that all self-denial is good for the meal before sunset. He mostly kept the them the defects of the animal from His daily raw diet (with flexible permuta- settling for goat’s milk), soul. The diet of a man of self-restraint strict five-foods vow, once again under- which they are derived.” And there was tions and combinations) consisted of: cutting down on how much must be different from that of a man of lining his ascetic approach to food. the humane, ethical reason – Gandhi pleasure,” he wrote. n Sprouted wheat 8 tolas* he ate and so on. Drugs came across some literature from n Pounded almonds 4 tolas But there was a crucial Calcutta, which described the tortures difference in Gandhi’s cows and buffaloes were subjected to by n Whole almonds 1 tola their keepers. n Green vegetables, such as doodhi or long-running attention to cucumber (grated) 16 tolas Tea In 1912, when he was living in Tolstoy his diet and our modern n Raisins (or fresh fruits) 20 tolas obsession with healthy Farm in South Africa, he pledged to abjure milk, along with his friend and n Lemons 2 tolas eating. For the Mahatma, close associate Hermann Kallenbach. n Honey 4 tolas Both men felt milk was not necessary for it was not only for the pur- Coffee *1 tola = 10 gm pose of being fit, though the human body, indeed it often had harmful effects. But Gandhi was forced But by mid-August he had to abandon his that was certainly part of to review his no-milk policy when he fell diet (he had lost weight on it) because of the plan. For him, dietary ill with severe dysentery in the middle of an attack of dysentery. “It appears I was n Dinner at experiments were part of a recruiting campaign in Kheda for not digesting the raw foods I was taking,” Sevagram, World War I and doctors insisted he he wrote in Young India. He did add his philosophy of self-de- Wardha, needed milk to shore up his strength. though that “as a searcher for Truth I nial and self-restraint, and Maharashtra Gandhi, who writes that he was literally deem it necessary to find the perfect food of an overall, lifelong ALAMY PHOTO at death’s door, gave in and started to for a man to keep body, mind and soul in a sound condition.” moral, spiritual and ethi- drink goat’s milk. cal quest which dominated every aspect of his life. GANDHI’S SUGGESTED DIET FOR SEDENTARY MEN n Fresh fruit according to one’s n Not necessary to have more than But he never forced his taste and purse three meals a day Cow milk or butter 2lbs (907 ml) Leafy vegetables 85gm Ghee or butter 42.5gm/56.7gm n Good to take two sour limes n In the cities some people keep dietary beliefs on anyone (suggested quantity) and was always delighted Other vegetables 142gm Gur or white sugar 42.5 gm a day nibbling from time to time. This Cereals 170gm n Salt to be added afterwards habit is harmful. The digestive to hear different views on (wheat, rice, bajri, in all) Raw vegetables 28.35gm according to taste apparatus requires rest the subject. (Key to Good Health, Navjivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 1960, quoted in Gandhi and Health @150, Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi)