‘She Gets the Taunts and Bears the Blame’: Infertility in Contemporary India

This chapter provides a preliminary survey of infertility and its social context in present-day India. It aims to demonstrate and foreground the historical aspects of this issue, which are essential in order to understand how and why the Indian fertility industry has developed in the ways it has don...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Palgrave Handbook of Infertility in History pp. 241 - 262
Main Author Grey, Daniel J.R.
Format Book Chapter
LanguageEnglish
Published London Palgrave Macmillan UK
Subjects
Adoption
Population policies, Religion
Reproductive medicine
Surrogacy
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Summary:This chapter provides a preliminary survey of infertility and its social context in present-day India. It aims to demonstrate and foreground the historical aspects of this issue, which are essential in order to understand how and why the Indian fertility industry has developed in the ways it has done, and why infertility remains in many respects a taboo subject. Drawing on English-language Indian newspapers, government reports, film, and literature, Grey shows how present-day attitudes and practices have their roots in policies and ideas originally generated during the late twentieth century. He explores the demographic context and population policies of India; reproductive medicine, adoption, and surrogacy; the social and cultural context of infertility; and religion. The chapter reveals how the profound stigmatization of infertility in contemporary India disproportionately affects women, regardless of faith, caste, region, or class background.
Bibliography:I am deeply indebted to Gayle Davis, Sarah Hodges, and Tracey Loughran for their helpful suggestions on how best to improve this chapter, and to Rebecca Williams for granting me special access to her doctoral thesis.
ISBN:1137520795
9781137520791
DOI:10.1057/978-1-137-52080-7_13