Population

A Case Study: India

Indian leaders face a dilemma. Should they stand by and wait for economic development and family planning programs to motivate contraception? Or should they take the destiny of the people into their hands and force a fertility decline? What should take preference, individual desires or the welfare of the community, the state. the nation? Mrs. Indira Gandhi stated that "some personal rights have to be kept in abeyance for the human rights of the nation; the right to live, the right to progress."

Under the leadership of Mrs. Gandhi, a compulsory birth control program was put into effect. Here is a description of how the program operated in two states.

The New Legislation

Punlab and Haryana have passed ordinances with strong punitive measures against government employees who do not undergo sterilization after having two children: basic amenities like subsidized housing, maternity leave, and medical care are to be denied to couples not having one sterilized spouse or not pledging to undergo sterilization after the second child. The coercive element in then disincentives applied to government employees is probably designed to have an impact on other sectors of the society, for the immediate demographic result of these measures is not likely to be very great The strongest and most sweeping legislative measure, on the verge of becoming a law, is in Maharashtra. The Maharashtra bill calls for compulsory sterilization of all men with three living children. Failure to comply would result in forcible sterilization under arrest. The compulsory sterilization bill has been approved by the Maharashtra legislative assembly with lust one dissenting vote. It is expected to become law this year. Under the bill a woman would have to undergo stirilization if medical contraindications proscribe vasectomy for her husband. Furthermore, the bill proposes compulsory abortion of any pregnancy that would result in a fourth child. Justifying such a punitive bill, the Maharashtra state minister of health commented, "We have tried every trick in the book, and now we have come to the last chapter." He predicted that "the rest of India will follow our lead. They are watching and waiting. All developing countries with limited resources will have to think of this maner."

K. Guihati, "Compulsory Sterilization: The Change in India's Population Policy," Science. Vol.195 (March 25, 1977), pp.1300-1305

I feel neither a man nor a woman," complained one man who had been sterilized. The women tell us we are not men any more and that we should work in the kitchen while they work in the fields. My wife asked me to leave the house or stay and do the kitchen work."

Neither of the villagers I spoke with had been given any guidance by a family- planning or social worker. No one had explained to them, for instance, that sterilization does not cause impotence. Officially, there was no coercion, but the elaborate system of "disincentives" amounted to the same thing. Government employees had to produce two or more candidates for sterilization. For such civil servants, or for anybody who was being pressured into submitting to sterilization himself, it was usually possible to hire a stand-in for about 200 rupees ($22). For those not in government service all sorts of privileges - such as licenses for guns, shops, ration cards - were denied unless the applicant could produce a sterilization certificate.

When these incentives did not enable local officials to meet their quotas, they turned to harsher means. In Katauli, several young men without children were ordered sterilized. A tea-shop owner was ordered to submit to a vasectomy, "or we will burn down your shop." He agreed, even though his wife was past the childbearing age. In Delhi, a man of 25 agreed to be sterilized in order to receive medical treatment at a hospital. After a police attack on the Muslim village of Uttawar, southwest of Delhi, 800 vasectomies were performed - giving Uttawar. as the Indian Express noted, "the dubious distinction of probably having every eligible male sterilized." Across North India, villagers often slept in the fields to avoid the sterilization teams, or hid in their houses during the day. In the city of Muzaffarnagar, 70 miles north of Delhi, vasectomy camps handled between 1,200 and 1,800 cases a day. Each operation took five to ten minutes. and there was often no follow-up when the patient suffered postoperative bleeding, infection or even tetanus. The state quota for Uttar Pradesh had been set at 400,000, but the chief minister raised it to 1.5 million, presumably to please Sanjay (Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi's son). Some 700.000 operations were actually performed, a phenomenal increase over the previous year's total of 129,000.........

ASSIGNMENT:Mandatory Sterilization: The Dilemma

As the leader of an overpopulated country, you are faced with the problem of whether or not to promote compulsory sterilization of couples who have had their quota of two children. You know that population growth has now reached the point where the world population would double by the year 2000, even if all couples had only two children, and that it would take at least another generation to stabilize. If the problem is not solved by the birth rate, it will eventually have to be solved by the death rate, which would mean terrible human suffering. Voluntary population control has been tried, but many people refuse to practise birth control, saying that it is against their religion, or that it is their right to have as many children as they wish. You know that you will receive a great deal of public criticism if you promote sterilization. What should you do?

Please post your response to this dilemma in the Discussion area.

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