Educate India’s women, don’t butcher them

Thirteen deaths after a mass sterilisation drive show up how the country devalues its females, says

FOR years I worked as a political journalist specialising in the Asian subcontinent. Often I would find myself, once the microphones and cameras had been packed away, chatting informally with Indian politicians, almost all of whom were men.

They were much less circumspect than they had been just moments before, on the record.

Conversations invariably took the same form. First there was the monologue: “India is on the way to greatness . . . Do you know what holds us back? The only thing that holds us back? Too many Indians.”

Then came the catechism, grindingly familiar no matter what the political party: Poverty? Caused by overpopulation. Disease? Caused by overpopulation. Problems with infrastructure and corruption? Overpopulation . . .

I was told, repeatedly, that overpopulation was the cause of the problem and the ultimate block to a solution.

This month, more than 15 years after I left that job, at least 13 women were killed in India because of that catechism.

The victims were among those who received tubectomy operations at a government-run mobile sterilisation clinic in Chhattisgarh, one of India’s poorest states. The procedure involves clamping, or severing, the fallopian tubes so that the eggs can no longer reach the uterus for fertilisation.

The clinic was run as part of a national campaign to slow India’s population growth. Over six hours, a Dr RK Gupta carried out 83 procedures, spending, on average, two minutes on each “problem” — cutting her open and tying her tubes.

Now there are reports that, apart from obvious concerns about performing so many surgeries in such a short of time, his instruments may have been dirty and his post-operative drugs faulty. And the families claim the women had the procedure against their will.

His face is now plastered across all Indian newspapers and he is being vilified across 24-hour news networks.

But it would be useful to look further than the 10-minute news cycle allows. Because, in January, Gupta was presented with an award by the Indian health minister for doing a record number of sterilisations, estimated at 100 000.

Sterilisation camps are not new to India; they have been part of the struggle to contain its population for more than 40 years. In 1976, Sanjay Gandhi, the son of prime minister Indira, initiated a compulsory sterilisation programme.

The International Monetary Fund and World Bank threatened that if numbers were not brought under control, the nation risked losing vital funds.

So Gandhi and his supporters bullied 8.3 million men and women — the very poorest — into having operations they did not understand. When the scale of Gandhi’s “vision” became apparent, there was widespread condemnation.

But some people still rue his death in a plane crash in 1980, claiming he was “the only iron man with the guts to deal with the population problem”.

For there is no doubt that India has a problem. With about 1.25 billion people, the country has the second-largest population in the world. It is also true that the burden of constant pregnancy, infant mortality and poverty lies heaviest on women — as does the “solution”.

Although a vasectomy is a simpler procedure, 2003 figures show that just under 115 000 vasectomies took place in India — and 4.6 million tubectomies.

Tackling the penis causes India to squirm, as if its virility was at stake. There are no such qualms about women’s bodies.

The case of Chhattisgarh and its deadly sterilisations has thrown India’s attitudinal problem with women into sharp focus — and is indicative of systemic issues with governance and policy. Why not give women birth control pills, intrauterine coils or condoms?

I know the answers, even as I ask the questions. For women to be in control of their own fertility would require continuous funding and mass education, neither of which is as cheap as the chop. It would also require women to be able to talk about sex, something that is still seen as a besharam — or “wanton”— act.

Women are the ones to suffer most, according to all important metrics. Maternal mortality rates in rural areas are among the highest in the world. Malnutrition disproportionately affects women, partly due to the tradition that girls and women eat last. All of this devalues India’s women and makes them invisible when the politicians are carving up the cake.

Perhaps most tellingly, according to a 2011 census, 82.14% of men are literate, compared with 65.46% of women. Literacy is the strongest predictor of contraception use by married couples, even if the woman is not economically independent.

The politicians’ catechisms really need to be interrupted.

Yes, population is at the heart of many of India’s problems and, yes, it needs to be controlled. But how about putting women in school, rather than squalid operating theatres? Give them access to good medical care.

Teach them, don’t cut them. Then, and only then, will India get to grips with this problem.

Anand is a BBC radio presenter and author Comment on this: write to tellus@sundaytimes.co.za or SMS us at 33971 www.timeslive.co.za