Nonviolence and Cow’s Milk: A Study of Gandhi’s Experiments with Brahmacarya in South Africa

Abstract

  In this paper, I examine one of Gandhi’s experiments with brahmacarya (sexual celibacy) during his stay in South Africa (1893-1915), namely “the renouncement of [cow’s] milk” (dūdhnā tyāg; hereafter dt). By so doing, I show that the experiment with dt was the key factor to understand his core idea of political nonviolence (ahiṃsā) in South Africa.

  During the initial stage of his satyāgraha (nonviolent resistance) struggle in South Africa, Gandhi lived together with his friend Hermann Kallenbach, a German Jewish carpenter. Gandhi’s autobiographical writings rarely mention about their cohabitation and their exotic experiment with dt.

  By examining Gujarātī and English-language primary materials about their cohabitation, I demonstrate that Gandhi’s experiment with dt was practiced with the intention to root out Gandhi’s homoerotic feelings towards Kallenbach. Gandhi believed that milk was the primal cause for the arousal of “sexual desire” (vikār); Gandhi and Kallenbach developed a close and intimate relationship during their cohabitation. Gandhi had to take the vow of dt in order to gain a victory in his satyāgraha struggle; Gandhi firmly believed that the visible violence in the outside world was a reflection of the invisible violence (sexual desire) inside him.