Editing Mahatma Gandhi (section)

=== Vegetarianism and committee work ===
[[File:Gandhi-1890.jpg|thumb|Gandhi with the Vegetarian Society on the Isle of Wight, 1890]]
His vow to his mother influenced Gandhi's time in London. Gandhi tried to adopt "English" customs, including taking dancing lessons.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tendulkar |first=Dinanath Gopal |title=Mahatma: 1920-1929 |date=2 September 2008 |publisher=Vithalbhai K. Javeri & D.G. Tendulkar, 1951 |location=the University of Michigan |pages=463}}</ref> However, he didn't appreciate the bland vegetarian food offered by his landlady and was frequently hungry until he found one of London's few vegetarian restaurants. Influenced by [[Henry Stephens Salt|Henry Salt's]] writing, Gandhi joined the [[Vegetarian Society|London Vegetarian Society]] (LVS) and was elected to its executive committee under the aegis of its president and benefactor [[Arnold Hills]].{{sfnp|Brown|1991|p={{page needed|date=July 2024}}}} An achievement while on the committee was the establishment of a [[Bayswater]] chapter.<ref name="Tendulkar1951" /> Some of the vegetarians Gandhi met were members of the [[Theosophical Society]], which had been founded in 1875 to further universal brotherhood, and which was devoted to the study of [[Buddhist]] and [[Hindu]] literature. They encouraged Gandhi to join them in reading the [[Bhagavad Gita]] both in translation as well as in the original.{{sfnp|Brown|1991|p={{page needed|date=July 2024}}}}

Gandhi had a friendly and productive relationship with Hills, but the two men took a different view on the continued LVS membership of fellow committee member [[Thomas Allinson]]. Their disagreement is the first known example of Gandhi challenging authority, despite his shyness and temperamental disinclination towards confrontation.{{Citation needed|date=September 2024}}

Allinson had been promoting [[Birth control#Birth control movement|newly available birth control methods]], but Hills disapproved of these, believing they undermined public morality. He believed [[History of vegetarianism#19th century|vegetarianism to be a moral movement]] and that Allinson should therefore no longer remain a member of the LVS. Gandhi shared Hills' views on the dangers of birth control, but defended Allinson's right to differ.<ref name="shyness">{{Cite web |date=1927 |title=Shyness my shield |url=https://www.mkgandhi.org/autobio/chap18.htm |website=Autobiography |access-date=11 August 2019 |archive-date=8 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190608201409/https://www.mkgandhi.org/autobio/chap18.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> It would have been hard for Gandhi to challenge Hills; Hills was 12 years his senior and unlike Gandhi, highly eloquent. Hills bankrolled the LVS and was a [[captain of industry]] with his [[Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company|Thames Ironworks]] company employing more than 6,000 people in the [[East End of London]]. Hills was also a highly accomplished sportsman who later founded the football club [[West Ham United]]. In his 1927 ''An Autobiography, Vol. I'', Gandhi wrote:

{{blockquote|The question deeply interested me...I had a high regard for Mr. Hills and his generosity. But I thought it was quite improper to exclude a man from a vegetarian society simply because he refused to regard puritan morals as one of the objects of the society<ref name="shyness" />}}

A motion to remove Allinson was raised, and was debated and voted on by the committee. Gandhi's shyness was an obstacle to his defence of Allinson at the committee meeting. Gandhi wrote his views down on paper, but shyness prevented Gandhi from reading out his arguments, so Hills, the President, asked another committee member to read them out for him. Although some other members of the committee agreed with Gandhi, the vote was lost and Allinson was excluded. There were no hard feelings, with Hills proposing the toast at the LVS farewell dinner in honour of Gandhi's return to India.<ref>{{cite web |title=International Vegetarian Union – Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) |url=https://ivu.org/history/gandhi/1891-11.html |access-date=26 September 2020 |website=ivu.org |archive-date=5 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201205030437/http://www.ivu.org/history/gandhi/1891-11.html |url-status=live }}</ref>