Gandhi Jayanti: When Mahatma bought desi calf in Bengaluru, Bapu's tryst with animal husbandry in city

Filmmaker S Balaram has made a documentary of Mahatma Gandhiji's visits to Bengaluru. It is said that Gandhiji had learnt a great deal about animal husbandry and wanted to put it into practice. Gandhiji had visited Karnataka 12 times, out of which he was in Bengaluru five times.

The documentary is 1.30-minute long and all his visits to Karnataka have found place here. It is also said that Gandhiji had bought a calf from NDRI Dairy. Here are 10 interesting, but not so popular facts about  Mahatma Gandhiji's Bengaluru visit.

1) He made five visits to Bengaluru- in 1915, 1920, 1927, 1934, and 1936.

2) He typically stayed at Nandi Hills and the Kumara Krupa Guesthouse.

3) In 1927, while travelling to Belagavi as part of South India tour to popularize Khadi, Gandhiji suffered from high blood pressure and mild apoplexy. His followers took him to Nandi Hills, a hill station, to recuperate.

4) On April 20th, he conducted community prayers at the railway platform itself and proceeded to Nandi Hills.

5) While recuperating, he restricted himself to a strict vegetarian diet, with the exception of goat milk. He wrote articles and letters on natural diets, experiments in dairy farming, labour, civil disobedience and social reform. After recovering at Nandi Hills, Mahatma Gandhi moved to the Kumara Krupa Guesthouse in Bengaluru from June 6 onwards. He was accompanied by Pt Madan Mohan Malviya.

6) The guesthouse happened to be adjacent to the office of William Smith from the Imperial Dairy Farm (today’s NDRI South Station). Gandhiji used this opportunity to meet with Smith every evening to discuss a subject close to his practices - the improvement of cattle farming across the country.

7) Gandhiji was also invited to the farm to learn about various techniques to improve dairy farming in the country.

8) Gandhiji considered himself to be a student and was a disciplined one too. He used to be at the institute at 5 pm every evening. He also insisted on being treated as any other student in the class who had come to learn about the basics of farming.

9) Gandhiji came across a highly productive cross breed cow named Jill (offspring of an Ayrshire bull cross-bred with a Haryana cow). She had given birth to 18 calves and had yielded approximately 1.5 lakh pounds of milk during her life span.

10) During the platinum jubilee celebrations of the dairy in January 2000, a two-foot statue of Jill along with Gandhiji was installed. Jill's statue was made by sculptor A Rajasekhar of Marathahalli. On June 19, 1927, the day of his departure, Gandhiji was asked to sign the visitor's book. Acknowledging him as the farmer of Sabarmati, he wrote, "Now I must put into practice what I have learnt in Bangalore."
 

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• Gandhi Jayanti
• documentary
• Gandhi visits bengaluru
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