Have you heard the story of a foolish woodcutter who was trying to cut the same branch on which he was sitting upon? While cutting the branch, he was feeling empowered and strong. But, little did he know what was awaiting him. Well, his success in cutting that branch ensured two things – he felling of it and it fell upon him.
The result?
He sustained considerable injuries to which he succumbed within 1 hour. If you are wondering what his death has got to do with the decision of the Union Cabinet passing the proposal of increasing the marriageable age of women to 21, just give this article 5 minutes of your worthy time and you will know some important facts about how this decision of the government will be akin to stabbing the Hindu society from the front in the name of women empowerment and reproductive rights.
- The Fallacious Arguments Behind the Proposed Law
The task force headed by Jaya Jaitley was assigned the task of understanding and presenting a report which deals with the age of motherhood, reduction in Maternal Mortality Rate, and other nutritional-related issues. This task force has recommended increasing the marriageable age of women to 21 as a solution to all of these problems. However, this claim is based on a logical fallacy of Confusing Cause and Effect, where 18 years as the minimum age of marriage has been ascribed the title of Cause and all the issues like MMR, Nutrition is labeled as to its Effects.
However, reality doesn’t work based on the rules of foolish presumptions, and the simple truth of the matter is that age of marriage has little to no relationship with any of these issues. The major reason for maternal mortality during pregnancy is not the 18 years of age of women but is the lack of proper medical care facilities and illegal abortions. Don’t trust this statement? In 1985, World Health Organization (WHO) in a report stated that 88% of maternal deaths during pregnancy could be prevented with proper handling1. WHO also gave 13 strategies for effectively reducing maternal mortality rate and a surprising fact is not even 1 out of all 13 strategies talked about the age factor being a cause of high MMR. Rather all the strategies mentioned about the role of the government in ensuring that proper medical facilities and care are provided to pregnant women at the appropriate time. It is the Government of India that despite its all fanciful schemes has failed to create a properly structured medical care system.
From a logical standpoint, it is hard to understand how increasing the age limit to 21 will have an effect on the nutrition of women and their children. But it is quite straightforward to understand that is one of the primary responsibilities of the government to provide for proper nutrition to all the citizens which also includes women of all ages.
Coming to the issue of illegal abortions. Statistics say that every day 13 women succumb to death because of resorting to illegal modes of abortions. Every woman who undergoes illegal mode of abortions very well knows about the risks and dangers involved in them but she doesn’t have a choice. According to an article published in IndiaToday, more than 80% of women do not know if abortion is legal or illegal in India. This is coupled with the fact that abortion facilities provided by the government are very much limited in numbers and are almost inaccessible to an average Indian woman. In these circumstances, women are forced by the government’s lack of concern in improving and making its facilities accessible to the average Indian populace, to resort to illegal modes of abortions. Has the Government of India taken any steps in order to prevent illegal abortions? The present state of affairs suggests otherwise.
- Repercussions on Women and Society
Now let us delve into the social and moral impact of this decision by the government. By raising the age of marriage to 21, the government is implicitly advocating for pre-marital sex and live-in relationships. The situation is aggravated by the fact that there is no clarity as to whether the age of consent and age of marriage will get converged or not. According to publicly available sources 2,3, the age of consent to have sex will still remain 18 as only the age of marriage is going to be increased. If this is the case, it simply means that girls below the age of 21 will be allowed to have sex but not get married. Therefore, the proposed modification in the law could be the biggest disaster that could befall upon the innocent and gullible women of India, and as a result, can have grave consequences on the stability of our family system.
Access to sex outside the framework of marriage can lead to physical relationships with multiple partners. It has been scientifically proven that females with more than one sexual partner tend to be less happy than those who have been with a single sexual partner4. The lesser the number of sexual partners the more happily a woman lives her whole life. The idea of monogamy is very important for the protection of women’s physical and emotional states. But when the State is allowing women below the age of 21 to have as many sexual partners as they can but does not allow them to marry, it is but directly encouraging women to go down the path of immorality and infidelity. Therefore, the Indian state doesn’t seem to be caring about the physical and emotional states and the overall happiness of Indian women. Had it really cared about them, it would not have initiated such an arbitrary and illogical decision.
Another vicious development that cannot be overlooked in this issue is the propagation of racist and dehumanizing discourse on Hindu women, where the women of the so-called upper castes are considered as trophies – particularly girls from Brahmin and Rajput communities 5-7. This is a serious concern in various Indian states where rabid caste-based hatred is prevalent in their sociopolitical discourse, where self-professed Dalit or lower caste activists spread statements fetishizing women from the upper castes 6,7. In such hostile environments, families from the lower end of the economical strata will have to bear the brunt of atrocities and live in a state of dreadful fear and insecurity concerning the honor of their sisters and daughters, while being prohibited to marry them to suitable grooms even after reaching the reasonable age of 18 years.
- Disastrous Effects on the Hindu Society and Indian Nation
Now, let’s move on to the already marginalized state of Hindu society and the impacts of this proposal upon its future existence. According to National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) for the year 2019-2021, the Hindu TFR i.e., the Total Fertility Rate has been constantly plummeting and is reported to be barely equal to 2.1, which is the replacement rate to maintain a population8. Replacement rate can be defined as the rate at which a population exactly replaces itself. It has been proved by various meta-analysis studies by various agencies such as the United Nations and the Registrar General of India, that an increase in the age of marriage of women leads to a proportional decrease in their fertility9. Hindu society is already below replacement levels of fertility, i.e., it is not reproducing enough children to maintain a healthy population balance in the future. Implementation of this proposal will have disastrous effects on the demographics of Hindu society by forcing it to enter the rabbit hole of not being able to reproduce enough population to replace itself and would be nothing short of systematic genocide of the Hindu society.
At this juncture, it is well evident how the secular policies of the Indian State only affect the Hindus, while minorities get away from the purview of governmental policies by citing the argument of religious freedom and protection of minorities. Be it taking control of Hindu Temples or banning firecrackers during Diwali or in the question of transgression on our age-old traditions such as at our kshetras like Sabarimala Temple or Shani Shingnapur, the Indian state has built a devious track-record of subverting and suppressing the religious autonomy and right to practice one’s religion of the Hindus. The present proposal will also be invariably forced upon the already declining Hindu population, whereas minorities including Muslims, who actually have higher TFR than the rest of the population will get away with because of the autonomy they enjoy with respect to their personal and religious laws. Superposing this with the fact of the rising Muslim population and their TFR being 2.6 which is 0.5 points above stable replacement levels10, this simply means that within the next couple of decades Muslims will have a significant population of youngsters whereas Hindus will be majorly represented by the population of older people. We must not make the grave mistake of overlooking the rather recent historical experiences of the Indian subcontinent, when Muslims who made up around 24.3 percent of India’s population11, used every possible method at their disposal for the creation of the Islamic State of Pakistan. Radical and sudden shifts in the sensitive demographic balance of the country could easily create a similar or far worse situation for the existing Hindus in the subcontinent, and this time around, the scale of the crisis would be incomparably larger than the dreadful happenings during the years preceding the partition of India.
- Globalist Agenda of Subversion, Destabilization and Depopulation in Action
If the previous points are not serious enough, consider the fact that not a single developed country in the world considers 21 as the minimum marriageable age for girls. In the majority of European and American countries, the marriageable age for both boys and girls is 18. It is also worth mentioning that behind this proposal, there have been international forces influencing the Indian government. The Indian Express quoted Jaya Jaitley saying, “I want to make clear that our reasoning behind the recommendation was never one of population control. The idea behind it is the empowerment of women.”12
No sane and rational-thinking person could fathom how the proposed law would help in the empowerment of women. On the contrary, the only plausible outcome of this decision would be an increase in the harmful issues in the lives of Indian women. About the question of women empowerment, it is crucial to understand the influential mechanisms of globalist forces in subverting, destabilizing, and depopulating third-world countries around the world, under the veil of women empowerment as a facade. The Malthusian propaganda towards decreasing population is well known13 and how in the name of Planned Parenthood and Family Planning, rich upper-class Whites attempted to reduce the entire populations of underprivileged groups (such as, Blacks, aborigines, etc.) that existed in America is also well documented 14,15. Apparently, Whites consider themselves as the master race, yet are finding themselves unable to compete with the supposedly “inferior” Indians. Almost every big American corporation is governed under the control of the CEO of Indian origins. Despite being immigrants and only 5% of the American population, Indo-Americans, be it economically or politically exert considerable influence. Therefore, it is quite natural and the best option for the globalist forces to push for the reduction in the procreation of future generations of the Indians, particularly, the Hindus. By understanding the machinations and subversions carried out by the present globalists and previously the colonialists, in the various parts of the world, the dots can be connected to recognize the bigger picture.
Adding to all of this are the growing trends for Cesarean Surgery, popularly called C-Sections have very long-term effects. It has been medically proven that late teens and early twenties up to the age of 23 are the best age to get pregnant and encounter the least risks associated with pregnancy. Consider this fact – the approximate chance of having a child with chromosome abnormalities and Down syndrome at birth at 20 years of age is 1 in 525 and 1 in 1650, respectively, whereas at 25 years of age this risk increases to 1 in 475 and 1 in 1250, respectively, further aggravating at 30 years of age to 1 in 385 and 1 in 900, respectively 16,17. Though there is no perfect age for getting pregnant a hard fact is that the window of the fertility of women is short. Pregnancy is not a joke and getting pregnant for a female poses huge costs in terms of physical and emotional well-being and getting pregnant after passing the peak fertile years, i.e., 17-23 creates further complications for both the child to be born and the mother to give birth. Aging takes a toll on female fertility and forcing girls to not get married during their peak fertile years doesn’t seem anything more than anti-natalist propaganda of reducing the birth rates.
The Indian Government, instead of accepting its own failure in providing better health and nutritional facilities has shifted the blame for these issues upon marriageable age, which, as elaborately discussed above has been proven to be a non-factor in relationship with high MMR and improper nutrition. In fact, increasing the age of marriage will further increase the various difficulties for women, the family structure, the future generations, and the very existence of the Hindu society, instead of solving them.
In summary, this decision of the government is like the proverbial wolf in a sheep’s skin for the Hindu society. It claims to empower women and increase their reproductive rights, but this part is nothing but that sheep’s skin. The underlying wolf has some horrendous motives which if not countered in the initial stages itself, will rot our society from the within like termites hollowing out the trees, and damaging its core beyond the possibility of any repair.
References:
- Prakash, A., Swain, S., Seth, A., Maternal mortality in India: current status and strategies for reduction. Indian Pediatr. 1991. 28(12):1395-1400.
- Snigdha, A., 13 women die in India every day due to unsafe abortions. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/13-women-die-in-india-every-day-due-to-unsafe-abortions-1296850-2018-07-26, 11 Aug 2018.
- Pandit, A., Govt works to raise legal age of marriage for women to 21. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/govt-works-to-raise-legal-age-of-marriage-for-women-to-21/articleshow/88328524.cms, 17 Dec 2021.
- Wolfinger, N.H., Does Sexual History Affect Marital Happiness? Institute for Family Studies, 22 Oct 2018. https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-sexual-history-affect-marital-happiness/
- Neelakandan, A., The Trophy-Wife Syndrome Plaguing Tamil Nadu We Need To Talk About, https://swarajyamag.com/politics/the-trophy-wife-syndrome-plaguing-tamil-nadu-we-need-to-talk-about, 6 Oct 2020.
- Vikas, ‘90% ब्राह्मण, राजपूत व भूमिहार की महिलाएं अपने बच्चों को दलित के घर देंगी जन्म’, दलित नेता के प्लान की वीडियो वायरल, https://falanadikhana.com/90-brahmins-rajputs-and-bhumihars-women-will-give-birth-to-their-kids-in-dalits-home-agenda-shares-in-bhim-armys-official-program/, 3 Jul 2021.
- Tiwari, S., MP: मंत्री बोले- ठाकुरों की महिलाओं को पकड़के बाहर लाओ, काम कराओ तभी समाज में समानता आएगी, https://falanadikhana.com/mp-minister-bisahu-lal-says-bring-out-the-women-of-thakurs-get-the-work-done-only-then-there-will-be-equality-in-the-society/, 26 Nov 2021.
- Kramer, S., Religious Composition of India, Pew Research Center, https://www.pewforum.org/2021/09/21/religious-composition-of-india/, 21 Sep 2021.
- Basavarajappa, K.G., Belvalgidad, M.I., Changes in age at marriage of females and their effect on the birth rate in India. Eugenics Quarterly. 1967. 14(1):14-26.
- Salve, P., Muslims Have Highest Fertility Rate, Lack Access to Healthcare. https://www.indiaspend.com/muslims-have-highest-fertility-rate-lack-access-to-healthcare-36353/, 27 Apr 2018.
- Graff, V., Galonnier , J., Hindu-Muslim Communal Riots in India I (1947-1986), Mass Violence & Résistance, 15 Jul 2013, http://bo-k2s.sciences-po.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/hindu-muslim-communal-riots-india-i-1947-1986, ISSN 1961-9898.
- OpIndia Staff, Union Cabinet clears proposal to raise the minimum age of women for marriage from 18 years to 21 years. https://www.opindia.com/2021/12/union-cabinet-clears-proposal-to-raise-womens-marriage-age-to-21-years/amp/, 16 Dec 2021.
- Follett, C., Neo-Malthusianism and Coercive Population Control in China and India. Policy Analysis. 2020. 897:1-35.
- Mohammad Speaks, The Pill – Black Genocide. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-black-genocide/, Accessed on: 19 Dec 2021.
- Caron, S.M., Birth Control and the Black Community in the 1960s: Genocide or Power Politics? J. Soc. Hist. 1998. 31(3):545-569.
- Kaiser Permanente Northern California, Maternal Age Risks. https://mydoctor.kaiserpermanente.org/ncal/specialty/genetics/maternalage.jsp, 2008.
- Stanford Health Institute, Risks of Pregnancy Over Age 30. https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=pregnancy-over-age-30-90-P02481, Accessed on: 19 Dec 2021.
(This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. NEO POLITICO neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
Jāmadagnya is a Hindu Scholar who does chintana, manana on Hindu Dharma and Bhāratīya Sanskṛti
