Environmental Engineering Reference
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was disastrous. In the impoverished countryside, peasants have desired
many children to help with the chores when they are little and to provide
for the aged parents when they are adults. Urban people consider a large
family a sign of prosperity and seek to carry on the family lineage. Upon
marriage, daughters go to live with and support the husband's family.
Although dowries are theoretically illegal, tradition always demands it.
Immediately after independence, the government did little more than
pay lip service to family planning. At the time of independence, popu-
lation was about 335 million. At first the government did not consider
more people a serious problem, but the 1961 census recorded 439 million.
The growth rate increased from 1.3% annually to 2.0% in only 10 years.
The government now recognized that it needed to take action. The first
approach to birth control was sterilization, which was not particularly
effective and generated backlash, even riots. Since then the population has
continued to increase, now at the rate of 16 million a year, to a figure today
of more than one billion. The hero of independence, Mahatma Gandhi
said “celibacy is the best contraceptive.” To demonstrate this, he would
occasionally sleep naked with young women. Although the First Five-Year
Plan, announced in 1951, established a committee to study the problem of
population, little came of it.
In the 1970s the government attacked the problem. At first sterilization
appeared to be the best form of contraception. It was permanent, cheap,
and required no tracking of days of the month. It appeared to be the opti-
mal solution for an underdeveloped country. Because the surgery was
simpler for a male vasectomy than a female tubal ligation, men became
the targets. The simpler technique for a laparoscopy was not available until
later. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi took a personal interest and put her
son, Sanjay, in charge. In spite of his reputation as a playboy and dilettante,
Sanjay Gandhi took the danger of overpopulation seriously and consulted
with experts. His solution depended heavily on sterilization. He organized
vasectomy camps, recruiting men from the villages by the truckload. The
patients received money. Yet problems soon surfaced. The surgery had a
high failure rate. Many men were tricked, for instance, not understanding
that the operation was permanent. Some were coerced, even kidnapped.
The program tried to increase its statistical success by sterilizing old men
who were unlikely to become fathers, and boys as young as 14 years old.
At the same time, the government faced a political crisis resulting in the
1975-77 state of emergency. The forced sterilizations were a major cause of
it. Family planning had become one of the prime minister's Twenty Point
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