On this day in vegan history · January 30, 1948
Gandhi Is Assassinated in New Delhi
The man shot dead in a Delhi garden had once been a shy London law student who couldn't stomach his landlady's cooking until vegetarianism gave him a cause, a community, and an argument.
The facts
- Date of death
- 30 January 1948, New Delhi, India, age 78
- Cause
- Shot three times by Nathuram Godse at an interfaith prayer meeting
- Vegetarian Society role
- Elected to the London Vegetarian Society's executive committee under president Arnold Hills
- The vow
- Promised his mother, before leaving for London in 1888, to abstain from meat, alcohol, and women
On 30 January 1948, Mohandas Gandhi was shot three times in the chest by Nathuram Godse at an interfaith prayer meeting in New Delhi. He was 78. Six decades earlier, an 18-year-old Gandhi had left for London to study law after making a vow to his mother that he would abstain from meat, alcohol, and women. Reading Henry Salt's writing turned that private promise into a public cause: Gandhi joined the London Vegetarian Society and was elected to its executive committee under president Arnold Hills. The habit of arguing for a diet against the grain of the culture around him, learned in vegetarian society meeting rooms in his twenties, stayed with him the rest of his life.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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Influenced by Henry Salt's writing, Gandhi joined the London Vegetarian Society (LVS) and was elected to its executive committee under the aegis of its president and benefactor Arnold Hills.
Wikipedia, on Gandhi's student years in London
Source: Wikipedia -
To persuade his wife and mother, Gandhi made a vow in front of his mother that he would abstain from meat, alcohol, and women.
Wikipedia, on Gandhi's departure for London in 1888
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
Gandhi's vegetarianism was never a private quirk; it was tested and defended in public debate before it became one thread in a larger philosophy of restraint and nonviolence. It's a reminder that reasoned, argued vegetarianism has been sitting inside major political movements for well over a century.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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