MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI was all of 19 when he came to England to study law, in late 1888. His mother had been against his travelling overseas, but she relented when Gandhi promised, before a monk, that he would refrain from eating meat, engaging in sexual relations, or picking up vice of any kind while abroad. Gandhi's wife Kasturba and their newborn son would not be travelling with him.
A miserable sea journey later, Gandhi reached London. He was constantly hungry in his early months in England, his self-described "capacious stomach" nearly always empty. First, as a guest at the home of a mutual acquaintance in Richmond, then as a boarder with an Anglo-Indian family in West Kensington, Gandhi subsisted mostly on bread, porridge and spinach. He writes of feeling too shy to ask for extra slices of bread, making do with 2-3 when “nothing less than a loaf would have filled me”.
Eating meat would have been a question of subsistence at this time, but Gandhi was already plagued with guilt over lying to his parents and indulging in non-vegetarian fare over the course of a year when he was a schoolboy. The moral and cognitive dissonance had been too much for him to bear, despite enjoying meat, and so he had decided at the time to stick to his family's practice of vegetarianism till the time his parents were alive. Now he had the added weight of the vow made to his mother. There was no way he could break it.
Then, during one of his walks around London in early 1889, he came upon an establishment that served vegetarian food only. It was called the "Central", occupying premises off Farringdon Street. Gandhi felt discovering the Central was almost akin to deliverance from God, but even before he stepped in, he found something that would nourish his mind and soul, just as much as the meal he was about to consume would nourish his body.
There, in the glass window of the Central was a volume titled "A Plea For Vegetarianism". The writer was a Henry Stephens Salt. In Gandhi's own words, he had wished that “every Indian should be a meat-eater, and had looked forward to being one [myself] freely and openly some day, and to enlisting others in the cause”. But Salt's words changed his mind. In reading his book, Gandhi came to the conclusion that vegetarianism was the only moral choice for an individual. The emphasis here is on the "moral" choice; vegetarianism as a hereditary or religious practice did not hold the same weight for Gandhi.
The young law student became deeply involved with the London Vegetarian Society over 1890-91, attending their meetings, setting up a chapter in Bayswater, and having his writings published in the society's newspaper.
It is here that his connections with the London Vegetarian Society's primary cast of characters would yield some intriguing present-day vestiges.
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One of the conflicts that Gandhi found himself unwittingly drawn into, at the London Vegetarian Society, was the power struggle between its president Arnold Hills — who was also the chief financial backer — and Dr Thomas Allinson, a prominent member.
Allinson supported the use of birth control techniques and for women to have the right to decide on the size of their families. Hills, a puritan, wanted Allinson pushed out of the Society for these views. Gandhi was torn: on the one hand, he had reservations about the issue of birth control, and he couldn't fault Hills for his principles. At the same time, he also believed that Allinson's non-puritanical leanings had no bearing on his standing as a vegetarian, and as such could not be grounds for ceasing his association with the Society. He accordingly expressed his backing of Allinson, although the doctor was eventually removed.
Allinson would go on to earn a mixture of fame and notoriety in the English medical fraternity for his unconventional views. Apart from advocating for birth control, he was against compulsory vaccinations for smallpox, advised against over-prescription of toxic drugs, and promoted a regime of fresh air, hygiene, exercise and nutrition for his patients. He also campaigned for wholemeal bread as a healthier alternative to the white variety. He set up a natural foods company for the purpose, and his eponymous brand of bread was advertised as having "nowt (nothing) taken out of it". The World War I years saw demand for his bread boom. Allinson WholeMeal and Hi-Bran Breads continue to be retailed in the UK.
The other figure in the story — Arnold Hills — didn't play an important role in the London Vegetarian Society alone. He also helped found the Thames Ironworks FC, which we now know as the English Premier League football club West Ham United. At West Ham’s London (formerly Olympic) Stadium, one of their VIP lounges is named after Hills. There is a slight irony in the fact that the Arnold Hills Suite serves alcohol and meat, given that the man himself was not only vegetarian, but also a teetotaler.
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Gandhi would go on to meet and befriend the man who shaped his ideas on vegetarianism. Henry Stephens Salt and Gandhi had not only their dietary ethics in common, but were also both deeply interested in the ideas of Thoreau, discussing him in their correspondence by letter. Salt — the son of a British Army colonel — was incidentally born in Nainital in India, although he didn't live here for any substantial length of time. Salt and Gandhi were both invited to address the London Vegetarian Society on 20 November 1931. A photograph of the event, at which Gandhi delivered his famous “The Moral Basis Of Vegetarianism” speech, features them seated side by side.
Gandhi's bond with the London Vegetarian Society was catalysed by Josiah Oldfield, who had been introduced to the Indian by a mutual friend, Dr Pranjivandas Mehta. Oldfield developed his ideas of vegetarianism further, into what he called fruitarianism. True fruitarianism would be the predecessor of veganism, but Oldfield himself did not exclude dairy and eggs from his diet.
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Which leaves us with the Sherlock Holmes bit. What might possibly connect the world's most famous fictional detective, and the world's most famous proponent of non-violence? We return to the Central, on Farringdon Road. A sharp-eyed reader and Gandhian, G Ram Mohan, noted in 2016 that the Mahatma’s years in London certainly overlapped with the period in which Holmes was meant to be active. (Mohan’s older brother, Dr G Krishnamurthi, was the founder of the Sherlock Holmes Society of Madras.) In “The Red-Headed League”, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sets up a scene where Holmes and Dr Watson walk through Central London in October 1890, canvassing the neighbourhood of one of their clients. They pass (and make note of) a vegetarian restaurant just before lunchtime, then have coffee and a sandwich before continuing on their way. The locality of the establishment? Farringdon Street.
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In photos: 1. Gandhi (bottom row, right) with members of the Vegetarian Society, London, 1890. 2. Meeting of the London Vegetarian Society in November 1931, with Salt seated next to Gandhi. 3. Breakfast at Mani Bhavan, Bombay, 1929. All images via Indian Journal of Medical Research, from 'Thought For Food: Mahatma's Views on Nutrition, Controlled and Balanced Diets' by Subbarao M Gavaravarapu and R Hemalatha.
