The death
of 15 women at two state-run sterilisation camps in
Chhattisgarh has put a spotlight on India's dark history of botched
sterilisations.
The drive to sterilize began in the 1970s when,
encouraged by loans amounting to tens of millions of dollars from the World
Bank, the Swedish International Development Authority and the UN Population
Fund, India embarked on an ambitious population control program.
During the 1975 Emergency - when civil liberties
were suspended -Sanjay
Gandhi, son of the former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi,
began what was described by many as a "gruesome campaign" to sterilize
poor men. There were reports of police cordoning off villages and virtually
dragging the men to surgery.
The campaign also made an appearance in Salman
Rushdie's novel, Midnight's Children.
An astonishing 6.2 million Indian men were sterilized
in just a year, which was "15 times the number of people sterilized by the
Nazis", according to science journalist Mara Hvistendahl. Two thousand men
died from botched operations.
"India has a dark history of state-sponsored
population control, often with eugenic aims - targeting the poor and underprivileged,"
Ms Hvistendahl told me. "The women's tragic deaths [in Chhattisgarh] show
that it still happens today."
Since family planning efforts began in the 1970s,
India has focused its population control efforts on women, even though, as
scientists say, sterilizations are easier to perform in men. "This may be
because women are deemed less likely to protest," says Ms Hvistendahl.
India carried out nearly 4
million sterilisations during 2013-2014,
according to official figures. Less than 100,000 of these surgeries were done
on men. More
than 700 deaths were reported due to botched surgeries
between 2009 and 2012. There were 356 reported cases of complications arising
out of the surgeries.
Though the government has adopted a raft of measures
and standards for conducting safe sterilizations, an unseemly haste to meet
high state-mandated quotas has often led to botched operations and deaths.
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