Vasectomy camps recall memories of dark past
Vasectomy camps will be set up in New Delhi next week to encourage men to undergo sterilisation to curb the country's rising population, rekindling memories of one of the darkest chapters in modern Indian history.
Authorities are establishing clinics in 10 hospitals in the hope that men will see the advantages of a vasectomy.
An incentive of 200 rupees (HK$34) is being given to every male who opts for the procedure. The city's leading hospitals are lending their doctors for the three-day camp.
'Out of the 34,000 men who come to hospitals for contraceptive advice a year, only 2,000 opt for vasectomy,' said Avinash Kaur Mehta of the Department of Family Welfare.
'The belief that it affects male virility is the main problem.'
Such camps were last organised 29 years ago under the 'Emergency' of 1975 when the then-prime minister Indira Gandhi suspended the constitution and her son, Sanjay, launched a programme of forced sterilisation. Men were forced out of buses and sterilised. A busload of professors on their way to a seminar in Punjab were dragged out and forcibly sterilised by zealous officials keen to meet Sanjay Gandhi's absurd targets. Some Indians died after botched operations; with little or no follow-up, patients suffered bleeding, infection, and even tetanus.
The village of Uttawar attained the dubious distinction of having every one of its 800 men sterilised. Men took to sleeping in the fields to avoid the teams that roamed around in mobile clinics seeking candidates.
'We know that vasectomy camps are still viewed with suspicion. But we are trying to educate people so that it becomes more acceptable.
It's just the easiest and simplest form of contraception for couples who have already had two children,' said Dr Mehta.
