History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c96.s2.69.5

v7.c96.s2.69.5

Gandhiji in his ‘Self-restraint versus self-indulgence’ (3rd. ed., 1928) stated that so far as India is concerned there is no case for contraceptives (p. 3) and advised self-restraint. But he might have changed his opinion if he had been alive today. To advise poor people to practise self restraint, when most of them live in hovels of one room or two rooms, who are uneducated and have no ambitions and pass life in abject poverty, sounds to them as a huge joke. The well-to-do have many interests in life and several outlets for their energy but for the poor there are very few. It is interesting to note that the Prime Minister in his ‘Autobiography’ (1936) strongly criticizes Gandhiji’s praise of poverty, suffering and ascetic life as utterly wrong, harmful and impossible of achievement (p 510) and regards Gandhiji's attitude to sex as extraordinary (p. 512).