Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the leader of India's independence movement, wanted women to refrain from having sex just for pleasure. According to him, men and women will have sex only as much as they need to produce children.
Margaret Sanger, an American birth control worker and sex educator, met in 1935. All this is known from the recently published account of the conversation that took place with Gandhi.
Recently Mr. A new biography of Gandhi has been published by historian Ramchandra Guha. In this book, Gandhi's thoughts on women's rights, sexuality and virginity have come up. Gandhi's secretary Mahadev Desai took detailed note of Gandhi's conversation with Margaret Sanger.
She writes: 'It seemed as if they both agreed that a woman should be liberated - she should be in control of her own destiny' - but they soon became divided.
Mrs. Sanger opened America's first family planning center in New York in 1918. He thought that birth control was the safest way to liberate women.
But Gandhi said that men should restrain their 'animal desires', and women should restrain their husbands.
He told Mrs. Sanger that sex should only be done to produce children.
That year, Ms. Sanger visited 16 cities in India, talking to doctors and staff. The topics of conversation were birth control and women's liberation.
He also visited Gandhi's ashram in the state of Maharashtra, and it was there that Ms. Sanger had this intriguing discussion with him.
However, Mrs. Sanger did not give up even after hearing Gandhi's opinion. He continued the debate.
"But women also have deep sexual feelings, they are as deep and intense as men," she said. "There are times when women want physical intercourse just like their husbands."
"Do you think that when a man and a woman are in love and happy, they will only have sex once or twice a year when they want a child - is that possible?" Mrs. Sanger asked.
She argues that "birth control is very convenient in this case - which will protect the woman from unwanted pregnancies and establish her control over her body."
But Gandhi continued to oppose him stubbornly.
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He told Sanger that he considered all sex to be 'desire'.
Gandhi said his relationship with his wife Kasturba became 'spiritual' only when he 'gave up the life of carnal desire.'
This book of eleven and twenty-nine pages traces the period from the return of the world's most famous pacifist leader from South Africa to India in 1915 to his assassination in 1947.
Gandhi got married when he was only 13 years old. Then at the age of 36 - when he was the father of four children - he started living a 'celibate' or non-sexual life.
Gandhi himself wrote in his autobiography that when his father died - he could not be by his father's side because he was having sex with his wife - this guilt haunted him.
However, towards the end of the conversation with Margaret Sanger, Gandhi agreed with her.
She said she has no objection to male voluntary sterilization, as men play a key role. Apart from that, the husband and wife can have sex when the woman has a 'safe time' every month rather than using contraception.
Mrs. Sanger did not like these arguments very much. He was deeply shocked by Gandhi's refusal to acknowledge his views.
He later wrote that Gandhi had a strong fear of indulging in instincts and free sex.
This is not the first time that Mr. Gandhi has opposed birth control.
She once told a women's rights activist: "Do you think birth control is possible with contraception? Women should learn how to prevent their husbands. Using contraceptives like in the West will have dire consequences. Women and men will live only for sex." Their brains will be weak. Their sense of principle will be shattered. "
In his book 'The Years That Changed the World', Ramchandra Guha says that Gandhi thought that sex was just 'animal desire', which is necessary for procreation. And birth control is giving legitimacy to this animal desire.
Many years later, a terrible Hindu-Muslim riot erupted in Noakhali, Bengal, over the partition of India - at which point Gandhi underwent a controversial test. He told his granddaughter and all-time companion Manu Gandhi to sleep in the same bed with him.
He wanted to test if he could completely conquer his sexual desire.
Mr. Guha writes that Gandhi thought that the religious conflict in India had something to do with the fact that he had failed to become a full-fledged celibate.
However, when Gandhi told his associates about the sleep test with Manu Gandhi, they warned him not to do it and it would tarnish his reputation.
One assistant said it was incomprehensible and unhelpful. Another quit working with Gandhi in protest.
Clearly, Gandhi's relationship with women was complex.
He could not see the women trying to make themselves attractive to men. "She had an intense hatred for modern hairstyles and clothing."
He wrote to Manu Gandhi that he was also against the burqa of Muslim women.
On the other hand, she was also a supporter of women's education, right to work and equality of men and women.
She involved women in the socio-political movement, making Sarojini Naidu the leader of the Congress - while there were very few women political leaders in the West.
But Gandhi also thought that child rearing and housework were the work of women.
One of his associates said that his mentality was very similar to that of medieval Christian saints or Jain saints.
Historian Patrick French said that although Gandhi's thought seemed to be rooted in ancient Hindu philosophy, he was in fact a genius of the Victorian era in England.
Ramchandra Guha writes that, judging by today's standards, Gandhi could be called a conservative, but judging by his own time, he was undoubtedly progressive.