India has a dark history of family planning, with mandatory vasectomy, or nasbandi, enacted in some parts of the country during the dark period of dictatorship from 1975 to 1977. During this period, millions of people were sterilized forcibly, and sterilization vans were feared across India. It is for good reason that in 1977, the Janata Party used the slogan Indira hatao, indiri bachao (Remove Indira, save your penis) to win a landslide. Average farmers could tolerate opposition politicians and journalists being imprisoned, and dissent being clamped upon, but they could not tolerate being forcibly sterilized. This naturally caused more than a few riots. This period ended in 1977, when the state of emergency ended and elections were called - elections which the ruling party lost handily.
Yet, this campaign of mandatory sterilization could have gone further if the Emergency was slightly longer. The states of Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh each had proposals to enact mandatory sterilization with jail sentences for those who did not comply, but Maharashtra’s proposal came the closest to being enacted. The Maharashtra Compulsory Sterilization Bill, 1976, was referred to Parliament. Yet, before it could be discussed, elections were called and the bill was returned to Maharashtra with no assent.
But what if Indira Gandhi hesitated in calling elections, and gave the bill enough time to be given assent. I doubt that everyone listed in the bill would be sterilized, as sterilization certificate forgery was a very big business IOTL as well. What this means is that those who can’t afford any forged certificates, the poor, will be the most likely to be forcibly sterilized by sterilization vans. Maharashtra had pretty modern infrastructure suitable for such a project, and Sanjay Gandhi, who held much power in this period, would see this as his own personal project, directing Youth Congress, which he turned into a paramilitary, to enforce this bill. The poor would be deeply angry about this, and I strongly suspect that there would be very severe riots across Maharashtra, as well as people trying to flee across the border to states without mandatory sterilization. The state would be consumed in chaos.
Yet, this campaign of mandatory sterilization could have gone further if the Emergency was slightly longer. The states of Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh each had proposals to enact mandatory sterilization with jail sentences for those who did not comply, but Maharashtra’s proposal came the closest to being enacted. The Maharashtra Compulsory Sterilization Bill, 1976, was referred to Parliament. Yet, before it could be discussed, elections were called and the bill was returned to Maharashtra with no assent.
But what if Indira Gandhi hesitated in calling elections, and gave the bill enough time to be given assent. I doubt that everyone listed in the bill would be sterilized, as sterilization certificate forgery was a very big business IOTL as well. What this means is that those who can’t afford any forged certificates, the poor, will be the most likely to be forcibly sterilized by sterilization vans. Maharashtra had pretty modern infrastructure suitable for such a project, and Sanjay Gandhi, who held much power in this period, would see this as his own personal project, directing Youth Congress, which he turned into a paramilitary, to enforce this bill. The poor would be deeply angry about this, and I strongly suspect that there would be very severe riots across Maharashtra, as well as people trying to flee across the border to states without mandatory sterilization. The state would be consumed in chaos.