Moral Bankruptcy and Mahatma Gandhi - II

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

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Moral Bankruptcy and Mahatma Gandhi - II 

 

In the wake of abortion, says M. Bureau, “come infanticide, incest, and crimes that outrage nature. There is nothing special to say about the first, except that the crime has become more frequent in spite of all the facilities offered to unmarried mothers and of the extension of anti-conceptionist practices and abortion. It no longer arouses the same reprobation among so-called ‘respectable’ people and juries usually return a verdict of ‘not guilty’.” M. Bureau devotes a full section to the growth of pornographic literature. He defines it as the exploitation, with an erotic or obscene intention, of the resources which literature, the drama, and place pictures at men’s disposal for their mental refreshment and repose.

And he adds: In every branch of its business it has secured markets, the extent of which may be gauged by the ingenuity and excellent commercial organization of the directors, the enormous amount of capital, the unexampled perfection of the methods employed . The impression has been so strong and so unique that the whole psychological life of the individual is affected by it, a sort of secondary sexual life, which exists wholly in the imagination, is created. M. Bureau then quotes this pathetic paragraph from M. Ruvsen: All pornographic and sadistic literature secures in this psychological law the most powerful enticement which it exerts over an innumerable number of readers, and the flourishing circulation of this literature shows beyond dispute that those who live a secondary sexual life through their imagination are legion, not to mention those in lunatic asylums especially in a period like our own, when the abuse of newspapers and books creates around all consciences what W. James calls ‘a plurality of under-universe’, in which each can lose himself, and forget along with himself the duties of the present hour. These disastrous consequences, it should never be forgotten, are a direct result of one single fundamental error, namely, that sexual indulgence for its own sake is a human necessity and that without it neither man nor woman reaches their full growth. Immediately a person becomes possessed of such an idea and begins to look upon what in his estimation was one time a vice as a virtue, there is no end to the multiplication of devices that would excite animal passions and help him to indulge in them. M. Bureau then gives chapter and verse to show how the daily press, the magazine, the pamphlet, the novel, the photograph and the theatre increasingly pander to and provide for this debasing taste. But the reference hitherto has been to the decay of morals amongst unmarried people. M. Bureau next proceeds to show the measure of moral indiscipline in the married state.

He says: Among the aristocracy, the middle class, and the peasants’ vanity and avarice are responsible for a vast number of marriages marriage is entered upon also to obtain an advantageous post to join two properties, especially two landed estates, to regularize a former connection or to legitimatize a natural child; to provide unfailing and devoted attentions for a man’s rheumatics and old age, to be able to choose the place of his garrison at the time of conscription, also to put an end to a life of vice, of which they are beginning to weary and to substitute another form of sexual life. M. Bureau then cites facts and figures to show that these marriages, instead of reducing licentiousness actually promote it. This degradation has been immensely helped by the so-called scientific or mechanical inventions designed to restrict the effect of the sexual act without interfering with the act itself. I must pass by the painful paragraphs regarding the increase in adultery and startling figures regarding judicial separations and divorces which, during the last twenty years, have more than doubled themselves. I can also make only a passing reference to the extension of unrestricted freedom for indulgence to the female sex on the principle of ‘the same moral standard for the two sexes’. The perfection of the anti-conception practices and the methods of bringing about abortion have led to the emancipation of either sex from all moral restraint. No wonder marriage itself is laughed at. Here is a passage M. Bureau quotes from a popular author: Marriage is always according to my judgment one of the most barbarous institutions ever imagined. I have no doubt that it will be abolished if the human race makes any progress towards justice and reason. But men are too gross and women too cowardly to demand a nobler law than that which rules them. The results of the practices referred to by M. Bureau and of the theories by which the practices are justified are minutely examined.

He explains: We are, then, being carried away by the movement of moral indiscipline towards new destinies. What are they? Is the future that opens before us one of progress and light, of beauty and growing spirituality, or of retrogression and darkness, of deformity and animalism that is ever demanding more? Is the indiscipline which has been established one of those fruitful revolts against antiquated rules, one of those beneficent rebellions which posterity remembers with gratitude because they were, at certain epochs, the necessary preliminary to its progress and the rise, or is it not rather the old Adam which rises up within us against the rules whose cry strictness is indispensable if we are to withstand the thrust of its bestial appeal? Are we face to face with an evil revolt against the discipline of safety and life? Then M. Bureau cites overwhelming testimony to show that hitherto the results have been disastrous in every respect. They threaten life itself.

 

Reference:

Young India, 8-7-1926