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called 'Birth Control', which has been with us secretly for long time and which has become a public policy in recent years. It consists in the use of chemical and mechanical means for the
prevention of contraception. Ahimsa thinkers have been fopposed Ba expedient mainly because they have felt that by the use of contraceptives inordinate sexualandulgence inside as well as out of marriage gets facilitated. From the physiological point of view inordinate sexual indulgence is most likely to lead to th speedy decline to the human race The subject has been discussed at great length by Mahatma Gandhi EFETT weekly writings, which have been collected Self-Restraint Vs self Indulgence'.
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It is an earnestly held view of Ahimsa thile that the best form of family planning would be bŷrself controlton Brahmacharya. Yet Ahimsa thinkers deplore with the others failure of the family planning programme initiated by our Government in the Five Year Plans of this country was in the Fist Five Years Plan that the idea of population control and the reduction of the birth-rate to the extent necessary to stabilise the population at a level consistent with the requirements of national economy' was first mooted. The appeal for family' Planning was then mainly put forward on considerations of health and welfare of the family In the second and the third, Five-Year Plans the profor her family planning was developed further and it was stated that the objective of stabilsing the growth of Bopulation over a reasonable period must be regarded as at the very centre of planned development.
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Earls FTE FIFE OF The large-scale family planning programmes have unfor tunately not been too successful. The population has continued to increase atthe nonal or even higher than normal rater Fhat is a matter for real regret Of all those who believe in Ahimsa ideology it becomes an obvious duty to be positively assiduous in the implementation of the policy of population stabilisation and control deliberately adopted by our Government by all the means within their capacity.
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