Of all the voices that have spoken out against violence to animals, Gandhi’s is perhaps the most revered. Thus, World Farm Animals Day is observed on October 2nd of every year, Gandhi’s birthday.
While most of us struggle with the decision to stop eating meat, as he explains in his autobiography, Gandhi struggled to start.
GANDHI’S MEAT-EATING EXPERIMENT
After befriending a man who neither his mother nor wife approved of, Ghandi fell under what he describes as a spell of sorts, as this man was intent on turning Ghandi into a meat-eater. For your reference, he lived in the Indian city of Rajkot in the state of Gujarat.
“A wave of ‘reform’ was sweeping over Rajkot at the time when I first came across this friend. He informed me that many of our teachers were secretly taking meat and wine….
“I was surprised and pained. I asked my friend the reason and he explained it thus: ‘ We are a weak people because we do not eat meat. The English are able to rule over us, because they are meat-eaters…. Our teachers and other distinguished people who eat meat are no fools. They know its virtues. You should do likewise.’
“This friend’s exploits cast a spell over me….
“A day was thereuopon fixed for beginning the experiment. It had to be conducted in secret. The Ghandis were Vaishnavas. My parents were particuarly staunch Vaishnavas…. The opposition and abhorrence of meat-eating that existed in Gujarat among the Jains and Vaishnavas were to be seen nowhere else in India or outside in such strength.
“These were traditions in which I was born and bred. And I was extremely devoted to my parents. I knew that the moment they came to know of my having eaten meat, they would be shocked to death. Moreover my love of truth made me extra cautious….
“So the day came…. We went in search of a lonely spot by the river, and there I saw, for the first time in my life — meat. There was a baker’s bead also. I relished neither. The goat’s meat was tough as leather. I simply could not eat it. I was sick and had to leave off eating.
“I have a very bad night afterwards. A horrible nightmare haunted me. Every time I dropped off to sleep it would seem as though a live goat were bleating inside me and I would jump up full of remorse….
“My friend was not a man to give in easily. He now began to cook various delicacies with meat, and dress them neatly…. This bait had its effect. I got over my dislike for bread, foreswore my compassion for the goats, and became a relisher of meat dishes, if not meat itself. This went on for about a year….
“Whenever I had occasion to indulge in these surreptitious feasts, dinner at home was out of the question. I would say to [my mother], ‘I have no appetite today; there is something wrong with my digestion.’ It was not without compuction that I devised these pretexts. I knew I was lying, and lying to my mother….
GANDHI, VEGETARIAN BY CHOICE
“I said to myself: ‘Though it is essential to eat meat, and also essential to take up food ‘reform’ in the country, yet deceiving and lying to one’s father and mother is worse than not eating meat. In their lifetime, therefore, meat-eating must be out of the question….”
Of course, by the time Gandhi’s parents passed, his interest in meat-eating was a thing of the past thanks in large part to his discovery of Henry Stephens Salt’s A Plea for Vegetarianism.
“From the date of reading this book, I may claim to have become a vegetarian by choice…. The choice was now made in favour of vegetarianism, the spread of which henceforth became my mission.”
I’m struck by the passage highlighted above — Gandhi’s nightmare of a live goat bleeting inside him. We absorb the energy of the food we eat; it is the purpose for eating, after all. But who wants living inside them the negative energy of a disrespected animal killed by violent means?
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