Priyanka Chopra backlash spotlights India’s surrogacy stigma – even though it’s big in Bollywood

Surrogacy, whereby a woman gives birth on someone else’s behalf, remains controversial in India, which has repeatedly tightened laws regulating the practice

Shilpa Shetty, Preity Zinta, Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan have all had babies via surrogate – but that didn’t stop online trolls from attacking Priyanka Chopra

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Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas. The couple recently announced they had become parents via surrogacy. Photo: EPA

Published: 4:43pm, 25 Jan 2022Updated: 1:00am, 21 Apr 2023

No sooner had Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas surprised fans with the news that they’d had a baby via surrogacy last week, than internet trolls were attacking the 39-year-old Indian actress for “outsourcing” childbirth.

Some accused Chopra of “using” another person’s body to safeguard herself from the perils of pregnancy, while others questioned what kind of mother she was going to be, based solely on her and her American husband’s chosen route to parenthood.

The vitriol the star couple faced reflects the stigma that surrogacy – whereby a woman carries a pregnancy and gives birth on someone else’s behalf – still carries in deeply conservative India, where laws regulating the practice have been repeatedly tightened in recent years, even as it becomes increasingly popular among big Bollywood names and other celebrities.

In a joint Instagram announcement on Friday that set social media alight, Chopra and Jonas – who married at a high profile 2018 ceremony in Rajasthan attended by a long list of notables including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi – said they were “overjoyed to confirm” they had welcomed a baby via a surrogate, asking for privacy as they focused on their new family.

Many were supportive in their responses. Others, however, jibed that surrogacy meant “Nick has become a father but Priyanka is not a mother”, while some felt the need to take a jab at the 10-year age gap between the two, sardonically asking: “How will Priyanka raise two kids [at her age]?”

“So are you going to dump Nick Jonas now?” asked another Twitter user, referencing earlier remarks about not needing “a guy for anything except children” that Chopra was quoted as making in a 2016 interview.

Ready-made babies

Taslima Nasreen, a Bangladeshi author and feminist activist who lives in exile in India, responded to the social media storm with her own opinions on surrogacy, saying it was only possible “because there are poor women” in the world.

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