Moral Bankruptcy and Mahatma Gandhi – VIII

[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 – VIII

 

 It is now time to conclude this series of articles. It is not necessary to pursue M. Bureau in his examination of the doctrine of Malthus who started his generation by his theory of over population and his advocacy of birth-control if the human species was not to be extinct. Malthus, however, advocated continence, whereas Neo- Malthusianism advocates not restraint but the use of chemical and mechanical means to avoid the consequences of animal indulgence. M. Bureau heartily accepts the doctrine of birth-control by moral means, i.e., self-restraint, and, as we have seen, rejects and vigorously condemns the use of chemical or mechanical means. The author then examines the condition of working classes and the proportion of birth among them and finally closes the book by examining the means of checking the practice of grossest immoralities under the name of individual freedom and even humanity. He suggests organized attempt to guide and regulate the public opinion and advocates State interference, but finally relies upon quickening of the religious life. Moral bankruptcy cannot be met or arrested by ordinary methods, most certainly not when immorality is claimed as a virtue and morality condemned as a weakness, superstition or even immorality.

For many advocates of contraceptives do indeed condemn continence as unnecessary and even harmful. In this state of things religious aid is the only effective check upon licensed vice. Religion here may not be taken in its narrow, parochial sense. True religion is the greatest disturbing factor in life, whether individual or collective. A religious awakening constitutes a revolution, a transformation, regeneration. And nothing but some such dynamic force can positively prevent the moral catastrophe towards which, in M. Bureau’s estimation, France seems to be moving. But we must here leave the author and his book; French conditions are not Indian conditions. Ours is a somewhat different problem. Contraceptives are not universal in India. Their use has hardly touched the educated classes. The use of contraceptives in India is, in my opinion, unwarranted by any single condition that can be named. Do middle class parents suffer from too many children? Individual instances will not suffice to make out a case for excessive birth rate among the middle classes. The cases in India where I have observed the advocacy of these methods are those of widows and young wives. Thus in the one case it is illegitimate birth that is to be avoided, not the secret intercourse. In the other, it is again pregnancy that is to be feared, and not the rape, of a girl of tender age.

Then there remains the class of diseased weak effeminate young men who would indulge in excesses with their own wives or others’ wives and would avoid the consequences of acts which they know to be sinful. The cases of men or women in full vigour of life desiring intercourse and yet wishing to avoid the burden of children are, I make bold to say, rare in this ocean of Indian humanity. Let them not parade their cases to justify and advocate a practice that in India, if it became general, is bound to ruin the youth of the country. A highly artificial education has robbed the nation’s youth of physical and mental vigour. We are offspring in many cases of child-marriages. Our disregard of the laws of health and sanitation has undermined our bodies. Our wrong and deficient dietary composed of corroding spices has produced a collapse of the digestive apparatus. We need, not lessons in the use of contraceptives and helps to our being able to satisfy our animal appetite, but continuous lessons to restrain that appetite, in many cases even to the extent of absolute continence.

We need to be taught by precept and example that continence is perfectly possible and imperatively necessary if we are not to remain mentally and physically weak. We need to be told from the housetop that if we will not be a nation of manikins, we must conserve and add to the limited vital energy we are daily dissipating. Our young widows need to be told not to sin secretly but come out boldly and openly to demand marriage which is their right as much as that of young widowers. We need to cultivate public opinion that shall make child marriages impossible. The vacillation, and the disinclination to do hard and sustained work, the physical inability to perform strenuous labours, collapses of enterprises brilliantly begun, the want of originality, one notices so often, are due largely to excessive indulgence. I hope young men do not deceive themselves into the belief that, when there is no procreation, the mere indulgence does not matter, does not weaken. Indeed the sexual act, with the unnatural safeguard against procreation, is likely to be far more exhausting than such act performed with a full sense of the responsibility attached to it.

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. If we begin to believe that indulgence in animal passion is necessary, harmless and sinless, we shall want to give reins to it and shall be powerless to resist it. Whereas, if we educate ourselves to believe that such indulgence is harmful, sinful, and unnecessary and can be controlled, we shall discover that self-restraint is perfectly possible. Let us beware of the strong wine of libertinism that the intoxicated West sends us under the guise of new truth and so-called human freedom. Let us, on the contrary, listen to the sober voice from the West, that through the rich experience of its wise men at times percolates to us, i.e., if we have outgrown the ancient wisdom of our forefathers. Charlie Andrews has sent me an informing article on” Generation and Regeneration” written by William Loftus Hare and printed in The Open Court (March 1926). It is a closely-reasoned scientific essay. He shows that all bodies perform two functions: ‘namely, internal reproduction for the building up of the body and external reproduction for the continuance of the species.’ These processes he names regeneration and generation, respectively. The regenerative process internal reproduction is fundamental for the individual and, therefore, necessary and primary; ‘the generative process is due to a superfluity of cells and is therefore secondary .... The law of life, then, at this level is to feed the germ cells, firstly, for regeneration, and, secondly, for generation. In case of deficiency, regeneration must take the first place and generation be suspended.

Thus, we may learn the origin of the suspension of reproduction and follow it to its later phases of human continence and asceticism generally. Inner re-production can never be suspended except at the cost of death, the normal origin of which is thus also discerned. After describing the biological process of regeneration the writer states: Among civilized human beings sexual intercourse is practiced vastly more than is necessary for the production of the next generation and is carried on at the expense of internal reproduction, bringing disease, death and more in its train. No one who knows anything of Hindu philosophy can have difficulty in following this paragraph from Mr. Hare’s essay: The process of regeneration is not and cannot be mechanistic in character, but like the primitive fission, is vitalistic. That is to say, it exhibits intelligence and will. To suppose that life separates differentiates and segregates by a process that is purely mechanistic is inconceivable. True, these fundamental processes are so far removed from our present consciousness as to seem to be uncontrolled by the human or animal will. But a moment’s reflection will show that just as the will of the fully developed human being directs his external movements and actions in accordance with the guidance of the intellect this, indeed, being its function so the earlier processes of the gradual organization of the body must, within the limits provided by environment be allowed to be directed by a kind of will guided by a kind of intelligence. This is now known to psychologists as” the unconscious.” It is a part of ourselves, disconnected from our normal daily thinking, but intensely awake and regard in regard to its own functions so much so that it never for a moment subsides into sleep as the consciousness does.

Who can measure the almost irreparable harm done to the unconscious and more permanent part of our being by the sexual act indulged for its own sake? The nemesis of reproduction is death. The sexual act is essentially katabolic (or a movement towards death) in the male and in parturition of the offspring it is katabolic for the female. Hence the writer contends: Virility, vitality and immunity from disease are the normal lot of nearly or quite continent persons. Withdrawal of germ cells from their upward regenerative course for generative or merely indulgent purposes deprives the organs of their replenishing stock of life, to their cost slowly and ultimately. It is these physical facts which constitute the basis of a personal sexual ethic, counseling moderation, if not restraint at any rate, explaining the origin of restraint. The author, as can be easily imagined, is opposed to birth control by chemical and mechanical means.

He says: It removes all prudential motives for self-restraint and makes it possible for sexual indulgence in marriage to be limited only by the diminution of desire or the advance of old age. Apart from this, however, it inevitably has an influence outside the marriage relation. It opens the door for irregular, promiscuous and unfruitful unions, which from the point of view of modern industry, sociology and politics are full of danger. I cannot go into these here. It is sufficient to say that by contraception, inordinate sexual indulgence both in and out of marriage is facilitated and, if I am right in my foregoing physiological arguments, evil must come to both individuals and the race. Let the Indian youth treasure in their hearts the quotation with which M. Bureau’s book ends: The future is for the nations who are chaste. 1

I have received many letters, both in English and vernacular, asking me to publish this series of articles in pamphlet form in all the three languages English, Hindi and Gujarati. I am aware that a dozen letters may only represent the individual writers and there may be no real demand for the pamphlets. These are not propitious times for venturing on new publications. But a friend has come to the rescue and guaranteed all loss. The pamphlets will, therefore, be shortly published. If the correspondents who offered to contribute towards the cost of publication still retain the desire to contribute, they will please forward their donations. If those who want copies will register their names at the Young India office beforehand, it will help the manager to fix the number of copies to be printed. 2

 

References;

 

1. Young India, 19-8-1926
2. Young India, 9-9-1926