In 1997, a complaint was lodged against Somyajulu, a 40-year-old man who was a sarpanch in a village in Telangana’s Nalgonda district. His ...
In 1997, a complaint was lodged against Somyajulu, a 40-year-old man who was a sarpanch in a village in Telangana’s Nalgonda district. His wife was expecting their third child. Somyajulu, the complain said, was violating the law barring people with more than two children from serving on local self-governments.
Somyajulu sent his pregnant wife to her parents’ home and filed a plea with the authorities stating that he was being falsely implicated. The complaint was not followed through due to lack of evidence. The sarpanch eventually deserted his wife and got married a second time. The incident, quoted in a five-state study titled Law of Two Child Norm in Panchayat published in 2005 is a reminder of how double-edged the implications of such a coercive policy could be.
In 1952, India became the first developing nation with the foresight to formulate a voluntary National Family Welfare Programme. Since then, especially, post the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, India’s population discourse has followed an empowerment approach, which underscores that every woman has the right to decide if, when and how many children to have.
If a women’s needs for family planning and sexual and reproductive healthcare are met, along with other basic health and...
