E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & Timespresence, a doctor administered an injection which killed the heifer. Theprotest mail was heavy and fierce. Gandhi insisted he had done right.Frank sex discussions filled many Letters to the Editor. 'My correspondence withyoung men on their private conduct', Gandhi wrote, 'is increasing.' They askedhis advice.Taking advantage of relative leisure in the 'silent year', Gandhi read HavelockEllis, Forel, Paul Bureau's Toward Moral Bankruptcy and other Europeanauthorities on family and sex. His interest in the sex life of Indians alwaysremained high. He believed that early and frequent sexual intercourse .ad adebilitating effect on Indians; he understood the implications of the rapidincrease in his country's population.n the 1940s, the population of India was increasing by five million each year.)He wrapped this problem too in a spiritual cloak and, taking a leaf out ofsacred Hindu books, advocated chastity for religious reasons. But the biologicaland economic aspects of the situation did not escape him.In many articles that came from his pen, or pencil, in 'silent' 1926 and oftenthereafter, Gandhi consistently opposed the use of contraceptives; they were aWestern vice. But he did not oppose birth control. He always advocated birthcontrol. The birth control he favoured, however, was through self-control,through the power of the mind over the body. 'Self-control', he wrote, 'is thepurest and only method of regulating the birth rate.' Without such discipline,he contended, man was no better than a brute. He maintained that abstinencefor ever or for long periods was neither physically nor psychologically harmful.Gandhi and his closest ashram associates practised Brahmacharya, completecontinence; people in general, he said, might indulge in sex for purposes ofprocreation, but not to gratify animal passion. He denied 'that sexualindulgence for its own sake is a human necessity'.A correspondent wrote: 'In my case, three weeks seem to be the utmost periodof beneficial abstention. At the end of that period I usually feel a heaviness ofbody, a restlessness both of body and mind, leading to bad temper. Relief isobtained either by normal coitus or nature herself coming to the rescue by anwww.mkgandhi.org Page 271