Moral Bankruptcy and Mahatma Gandhi - I

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

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Moral Bankruptcy and Mahatma Gandhi - I

 

Kind friends continue to send me cuttings from Indian newspapers approvingly dealing with the question of birth-control by the use of contraceptives. My correspondence with young men on their private conduct is increasing. I am able to discuss in these pages only an infinitesimal portion of the questions raised by my correspondents. American friends send me literature on the subject and some are even angry with me for having expressed an opinion against the use of contraceptives. They deplore that, an advanced reformer in many ways; I should be medieval in my views about birth-control. I find too that the advocates of the use of contraceptives number among them some of the soberest of men and women of all lands.

I therefore thought that there must be something very decisive in favour of the methods advocated and felt too that I should say on the subject more than I have done. Whilst I was thinking of the problem and of the question of reading the literature on the subject, a book called Towards Moral Bankruptcy was placed in my hands for reading. It deals with this very subject and, as it appears to me, in a perfectly scientific manner. The original is in French by M. Paul Bureau and is entitled L’ Indiscipline des Moers which literally means “the indiscipline of morals”. The translation is published by Constable Company and has an introduction by Dr. Mary Scharlieb, C.B.E., M.D., M.S. (Lond.). It covers 538 pages in 15 chapters. Having read the book, I felt that, before I summarized the author’s views, I must in justice to the cause read the standard literature in favour of the methods advocated. I consequently borrowed from the Servants of India Society such literature as they had on the subject. They have very kindly lent me some of the books in their possession. Kaka Kalelkar who is studying the subject has given me Havelock Ellis’s volume specially bearing on the subject and a friend has sent me the special number of The Practitioner in which is collected some valuable medical opinion from well-known practitioners. My purpose in collecting literature on the subject was to test the accuracy, so far as a layman could, of M. Bureau’s conclusions. One often finds that there are two sides to questions even when scientists discuss them and that there is much to be said for either side.

I was anxious, therefore, to know the viewpoints, of the advocates of contraceptives before I introduced to the reader M. Bureau’s volume. I have come to the deliberate conclusion that so far at least as India is concerned, there is no case for the use of contraceptives. Those who advocate their use for Indian conditions either do not know them or choose to ignore them. But if it can be proved that the methods advocated are harmful even in the West, it would be unnecessary to examine the special Indian conditions. Let us therefore see what M. Bureau has to say. His studies are confined to France. But France means much. It is considered to be one of the most advanced countries in the world and, if the methods have failed in France, they are not likely to succeed elsewhere. Opinions may differ as to the meaning of the word ‘failure’. I must therefore define the word as it is here meant. The methods must be proved to have failed if it can be shown that moral bonds have loosened, licentiousness has increased, and, instead of the check having been exercised by men and women for purposes of health and economic limitation of families only, it has been used principally for feeding animal passions.

This is the moderate position. The extreme moral position condemns the use of contraceptives under every conceivable circumstance, it being contended that it is not necessary for man or woman to satisfy the sexual instinct except when the act is meant for race reproduction, even as it is not necessary for man or woman to eat except for sustaining the body. There is also the third position. There is a class of men who contend that there is no such thing as morality or that if there is, it consists not in exercising restraint but in indulgence of every form of animal appetite, so long as it does not so impair the constitution as to render it unfit for the very indulgence which is its object. For this extreme position, I do not suppose, M. Bureau has written his volume. For, M. Bureau concludes his books by quoting Tom Mann’s saying: ‘The future is for the nations who are chaste’.

In the first part of his book, M. Bureau has collected facts which make most dismal reading. It shows how vast organizations have sprung up in France which merely panders to man’s basest tastes. Even the one claim of advocates of contraceptives that abortions must disappear with the use of these methods cannot be sustained. ‘It is certain’, says M. Bureau, ‘that during the twenty-five years that have especially seen the increase in France of anti-conceptionist methods, the number of criminal abortions has not become less.’ M. Bureau is of opinion that abortions are on the increase. He puts down the figure at anything between 2, 75,000 and 3, 25,000 per year. Public opinion does not look upon them with the horror that it did years ago.

 

Reference:

Young India, 1-7-1926