India: male sterilisation order withdrawn after flurry of criticism

An instruction to male health workers in Madhya Pradesh to convince at least one man to opt for sterilisation or face losing their jobs has been withdrawn after a flurry of criticism.

The order issued on 11 February said health workers had until the end of the current financial year to notch up one sterilisation.

It was prompted by the fact that hardly any men in the state opt for vasectomy as a form of family planning. The burden of contraception is left overwhelmingly to women because of myths about how a vasectomy affects sexual functioning and male virility. Many men think it is tantamount to castration.

But the Congress party, which is in power in Madhya Pradesh, was forced to rescind the order after rival Bharatiya Janata party leaders criticised it. “It is unacceptable for employees to be harassed in such a way. It is very objectionable,” said Rajneesh Agarwal, a BJP spokesman.

Agarwal embarrassed the Madhya Pradesh chief minister, Kamal Nath, by invoking the 1975 emergency – when civil liberties were suspended – under the former prime minister Indira Gandhi when her son Sanjay launched a gruesome campaign of sterilisation. Villages were enclosed and men virtually dragged into vans for forced sterilisation.

More than 6 million men were sterilised in one year and 2,000 died from bungled operations. At the time, Nath was a close aide of Sanjay Gandhi.

Mention of the 1975 emergency prompted Nath to tell his health minister, Tulsi Silawat, to rescind the order. “No one will be forced to be sterilised. No one is losing jobs and we are just spreading awareness,” said Silawat.

The excesses during the emergency have ensured it is a brave Indian politician who brings up the subject of population control, despite the passing of so many decades and a population of 1.3 billion.

One such rare intervention came from the BJP’s Venkaiah Naidu, India’s vice-president, earlier this month when he said no politician mentioned the country’s “galloping” population and how it hardly ever came up in parliament.

He said: “The population is growing leaps and bounds, creating problems. See the problems in Delhi, traffic, more human beings, more vehicles, more problems more tension.”

The result of this studied avoidance across the board is that family planning in India is neglected and overwhelmingly a woman’s responsibility. Female sterilisation accounts for more than 70% of overall modern contraceptive use.

In the last five years in Madhya Pradesh, for example, only 3,397 vasectomies have been carried out, compared with 334,000 women who underwent sterilisation, even though the former is safer and easier.

Besides, the central government believes family planning schemes should involve persuading men to take their share of responsibility instead of leaving it to women to make sure they do not get pregnant.

Chaitali Verma, a women’s rights activist who works in Delhi slums, said most men cite the social stigma of vasectomy to get off the hook. “We all agree that Indian men need to start pulling their weight and taking responsibility for contraception but coercion isn’t the solution. It’s a sensitive problem and requires a sensitive approach,” she said.