Gandhi as a Food Journalist: First Nine articles by MK Gandhi
By Archana R Singh
Gandhi read his first newspaper at the age of nineteen when he traveled to London. He immediately became interested in writing for them! The other area that interested him almost immediately upon his arrival in London was a cult of obscure English dissenters. These were the Vegetarians of London.
Gandhi came from a vegetarian household in India and enjoyed eating meat slyly while waiting for a time when he could eat it without guilt. However, upon his arrival to London, in a restaurant in Farringdon Street, he came across a copy of Henry Salt’s Plea for Vegetarianism. He read the slim book from cover to cover. Gandhi who had been vegetarian by custom and tradition, now became ‘a vegetarian by choice’.
He began attending the meetings of the London Vegetarian Society. As usual, Gandhi with his natural leadership and organizational abilities formed a branch of the Society in his own neighbourhood.
The two great passions followed by young Londoners of the period were theatre and sport. None of them interested Gandhi. Yet, at the meetings of the Vegetarians of London he found a cause, and his first English friends. One of those friends was Josiah Oldfield, who was an Oxford graduate and barrister, now studying to be a doctor, and an active member of the London Vegetarian Society. Oldfield edited the Society’s journal, where he mostly wrote both on diet and on politics.
Gandhi started to write for the journal. That is where we trace the first journalistic writings of MK Gandhi. It is common to begin as a writer for a low circulation weekly in the early years of journalism but Gandhi with his excellence wrote an entire six-part series for them.
Through February and March 1891, The Vegetarian carried the byline of M. K. Gandhi, under the heading, ‘Indian Vegetarians—I, II . . .’ and so on. A look at the articles shows a desire to justify Indian eating habits and break the stereotypes around the relationship between Indian food habits and their body strength.
Back row (l-r): Rev. James Clark, E. Dolby Shelton, W. Chudley, William Harrison, Peter Foxcroft.
Middle row (l-r): Miss May Yates, G. Cosens Prior, Mrs. William Harrison and Mrs. Peter Foxcroft.
Front row (l-r): T.T. Mozumdar, Josiah Oldfield, Mohandas K. Gandhi
(From: The Vegetarian Messenger and Health Review of September 1936.)
The first article in the series was published on February 7, 1891 titled Indian Vegetarians. Herein Gandhi introduced the vegetarianism as followed by Indians. He describes the caste system, and also distinguished Indian vegetarian diet from the London vegetarian diet which included eggs.
The second article published on February 14, 1891 he describes the typical Indian diet “Unlike the English, the Indians do not take each dish separately, but they mix many things together.’ Moreover, ‘each dish is elaborately prepared. In fact, they don’t believe in plain boiled vegetables, but must have them flavoured with plenty of condiments, e.g., pepper, salt, cloves, turmeric, mustard seed, and various other things for which it would be difficult to find English names unless they be those used in medicine.” He wrote.
He also laments the lack of fruit in a typical Indian diet. “It will perhaps strike the reader that the fruit, yes the all-important fruit is sadly conspicuous by its absence in the above mentioned specimen dishes. Some, among many of the reasons, are that Indians do not know the proper value of fruit, that the poor people cannot afford to buy good fruit, and that good fruit is not available all over India except in the large cities. Indeed, there are certain fruits, not to be found here, which are used by all classes in India; but alas, these are used as superficial things, not as food, and no one knows their value chemically, because no one takes the trouble to analyze them”.
In the third article published a week later he launches into preparation of `Roti’ calling them `cakes for the benefit of his English readership. He explains the process of the preparation in great detail, “…say a tea-spoonful to a pound of flour – is mixed with the flour, a sufficient quantity of water is poured on it, and then it is kneaded with the hands until it forms itself into one homogeneous mass. This lump is divided into small equal parts, each as big as a tangerine. These are rolled into thin circular pieces about six inches in diameter with a wooden stick made specially for the purpose. Each piece is separately and thoroughly baked in a flat dish. It takes from five to seven minutes to bake one cake. This cake is eaten while hot with butter, and has a very nice flavour. It may be, and is, eaten quite cold.”
In the fourth article published on February 28, 1891, he takes it upon himself to defend the Indian physique. He denies that Indians tend to be weaker than ordinary British due to their dietary habit. He in fact reasons by saying, “One of the most important, if not the most important one, is the wretched custom of infant marriages and its attendant evils. Generally, children when they reach the great age of nine are burdened with the fetters of married life. In many cases they are married at a still younger age and in some cases they are betrothed while yet unborn. Thus one woman would promise to marry her child if male to another’s if female, and vice versâ. Of course in the two latter cases consummation does not take place before they are ten or eleven years old. Cases are recorded in which a wife of twelve had a child by her husband of sixteen or seventeen. Will not these marriages tell upon the strongest of constitutions?”
In the same article he argues about the high intellectual levels of Indians by saying, “Eat what food you will it is impossible it seems to make physical and mental strength go together except perhaps, in rare cases. The law of compensation will require that what is gained in mental power must be lost in bodily power. A Samson cannot be a Gladstone.”
In the fifth article published a week later Gandhi describes the life of a common Indian shepherd. He details his daily routine and his adverse living conditions and also his great strength. He attributes his strength to his diet, outdoor activity, breathing pure air and exercise. He says, “To return to the shepherd, he then takes his breakfast consisting of a thick cake made of millet – and Anglo-Indian name for bajari, a kind of corn much used in India instead of, or in addition to wheat – clarified butter and molasses.” He continues to talk about his lunch and dinner describing both in detail. “At about twelve o’clock he takes his lunch, which he always carries with him. It consists of the ever present cakes, clarified butter, one vegetable, or some pulse, or instead, or in addition, some pickle, and fresh milk taken directly from a cow. Then at about two or three o’clock he not unfrequently takes a nap for about half an hour under some shady tree. This short sleep gives him relief from the heat of the scorching sun. At six he returns home, at seven he has supper, for which he takes some hot cakes, pulse or vegetables, and winds up with rice and milk, or rice and whey.”
His fascination with Indian shepherds is continued in his next article. He talks about a shepherdess he knew personally who was hale and hearty at hundred years and writes, “Besides, the shepherd’s figure is symmetrical. It is very rare to see any deformity in him. Without being fierce like a tiger, he is yet strong and brave and as docile as a lamb. Without being awe-inspiring, his stature is commanding. Altogether the Indian shepherd is a very fine specimen of a Vegetarian, and will compare favorably with any meat-eater so far as bodily strength goes.”
In the next two articles Gandhi goes on to describe Indian festivals. He talks about Navratri and Garbi, importance of fasting as a ritual, he continues with Dussehra (Dashara) and the rituals of preparation of sweets, explaining that “for in India, women of the highest class would not mind cooking.”
The next article continues with explanations about Divali and Holi festivals. He contrasts the two festivals in the modes of celebration and also food! All the articles and many other details are available at: https://ivu.org/history/gandhi/
Gandhi not only experimented with truth but also with food. It is interesting to note that whenever he was taken ill, he tried to cure himself with change in his diet. He introduced natural diet of fresh fruits and nuts, giving up milk, making his own unleavened whole meal bread with hand-ground flour, and frequent fasting. He also started eating garlic daily to treat his high blood pressure, and much to his doctors’ surprise, managed it for years after the initial frightening diagnosis of hypertension. These, and many such intriguing details about the Mahatma’s experiments with diet and naturopathy to cure himself, have been revealed in The special issue, titled ‘Gandhi and health @150: Footprints of Indian Council of Medical Research. For detailed reading click on this link: https://main.icmr.nic.in/sites/default/files/Gandhi_health.pdf
So much was his involvement with vegetarianism that Gandhi himself wrote a small book of 37 pages titled, Moral basis of Vegetarianism available here: https://www.mkgandhi.org/ebks/moralbasis_vegetarianism.pdf
It is interesting to note that the man who goes on to become the Father of the nation began by defending India’s diet and eating habits in London at an early age of 19. He glorified Indian traditions, explained about preparation of unique Indian dishes, compared the regular meals with festival related sweets and tried his best to educate the common Englishman about Indian food. This perhaps is a new insight into Gandhi’s natural tendency to not just observe and learn but also to share and spread his knowledge. The very same qualities that he would go on to use in his career as a journalist through his very powerful publications Indian Opinion, Young India, Navjivan and Harijan! What we cannot ignore and should never forget is that a man who wrote relentlessly about political, social, cultural issues and who used his publications very effectively for his mission to free India, initially started his great journalistic journey with his first 9 articles about FOOD!
Food for thought: Towards a Greener Revolution 