Forced sterilisation during the Emergency
Topic: The Emergency (1975-77) and the Crisis of Democratic Order · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 6 "The Crisis of Democratic Order"
Meaning
Forced sterilisation during the Emergency refers to family-planning drives in 1975-77 that used force instead of persuasion. Sterilisation is a medical operation that stops a person from having more children. Officials and teachers were given targets for how many people they had to get sterilised, and the poor were the main victims. Along with forced slum demolitions, these were among the worst excesses (abuses of power) of the Emergency and were linked to Sanjay Gandhi's programme.
Example
At Turkman Gate in Delhi in April 1976, slums were demolished and residents were forcibly moved, and police fired on them. Such excesses were concentrated in north India and turned voters there against the Congress in the 1977 election. After 1977, "family planning" was renamed "family welfare", and the National Population Policy 2000 dropped targets in favour of voluntary choice.
Don't confuse with
- Twenty Point Programme: Indira Gandhi's official social and economic programme (land reform, ending bonded labour and similar aims). The sterilisation drives were coercive excesses, not part of its stated aims.