Sariwali girl took the name of sterilization-abortion, then created panic: kept fighting till her death, the US President was also questioned

India is the first country to officially promote family planning. Awabai Wadia has played a major role in this. Awabai’s name is taken among the richest famous judges in the world.

19-year-old Awabai Wadia became the first woman from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to pass the ‘Bar’ exam in the United Kingdom. Her success encouraged the Sri Lankan government to allow women to study law in the country. There are many such anecdotes of Wadia, which show that she used to challenge or promote government policies on women’s rights. By the time she died in 2005, she was a globally respected and well-known name in the family planning movement.

Not continuing legal career was not wrong: Wadia
IWadia was born in 1913 to a progressive Parsi family in Colombo. Despite being short-tempered for women, she studied as a lawyer and then worked in London and Colombo. She came to Mumbai during World War II and started working as a social worker. From here she started working for change and women’s rights. Wadia wrote in his autobiography “The Light is Ours”, “I think, it was not a wrong decision not to pursue a legal career as law was a strong element in everything I did.

Because of Wadia, the Government of India was able to officially promote family planning policies.

Tried to separate family planning from the word taboo

The term family planning was a worldwide ‘taboo’ in the late 1940s. Apart from provoking religious conservatives, it was also seen to be associated with racism. Wadia has told in his autobiography that people distanced themselves from him on hearing the word ‘birth control’. However, she was impressed by a lady doctor in Bombay who said that Indian women linger over pregnancy and complications until death ends their story.

Wadia kept fighting non-stop
Despite the social boycott, Wadia continued to fight for the issue. In 1949, he founded the Family Planning Association of India (FPAI), which he headed for 34 years. FPAI used to work from promoting contraceptive methods to providing fertility services. Wadia was satisfied with this work. During this time Wadia also had a miscarriage and had no children. It was Wadia’s efforts that led to the Government of India becoming the first government in the world to officially promote family planning policies in 1951-52.

FPAI took up projects ranging from deforestation to road construction apart from family planning. Linking family planning to the agenda of education, skill development and health, Wadia and his team employed creative communication techniques such as singing bhajans (devotional songs) with a social message and organized a family planning exhibition that was displayed across the country. to be done. This style of functioning of FPAI has boosted public confidence.

Wadia and his team have often presented information related to family planning in different ways.

Changes in the 1970s
For example, a project started in the 1970s at Malur in Karnataka resulted in a reduction in infant mortality, an increase in the average age of marriage, and a doubling of the literacy rate. The project received such popular support that the villagers did not let this policy stop after the FPAI exited.

Due to her international upbringing, Wadia was able to take Indian family planning to the global stage. Inspired by the success of South Korean women’s clubs, she organized groups where women could discuss social issues ranging from dowry to under-representation of women in politics. Also, she became a prominent figure in the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), which faced many challenges in controlling India’s growing population.

Wadia also criticized the Indian government and the US President when needed.

Politics further complicated these challenges
During the Emergency imposed from 1975 to 1977, the Indian government adopted strict population control measures, including forced sterilization. Wadia condemned this and warned against coercion in family planning programs and declared that one’s participation in it should be voluntary. Family planning was starting to show good results, but he lamented that the Emergency had “maligned the entire programme.”

In the early 1980s, Wadia faced another formidable challenge as chairman of the IPPF. She raised her voice against US President Ronald Reagan, who ordered cuts to funding some organizations that supported providing abortion services. Although the IPPF did not officially promote abortion, some of its affiliates provided abortion services in countries where it was legal.

Wadia ridiculed Reignite’s belief that free market economics would counter population growth. If anyone is believing this, then understand that it is not even near the word of development. There are many poor people in the country and you cannot leave them without support. In the United States, conservatives have argued that decisions on ease of access to contraception should be reconsidered following the reversal of abortion rights in Rowe v Wade.

Wadia was concerned about how abortion could be weaponized in the movement against birth control. People are trying to confuse abortion with family planning. Wadia said attempts are being made to destroy human and individual rights

Family planning is intrinsically linked to law and politics.

‘Birth control’ cannot be separated from socioeconomic development
Today in India, the political debate is on employing provocation and coercive elements to limit the size of families. Wadia cautioned against such methods. Wadia said in 2000 that the state of Maharashtra – to implement the two-child criterion, to reconsider stripping any third born child of food rations and free primary education, said that we cannot support those incentives. who do not uphold basic human rights.

Many such incidents in India have demonstrated that family planning is intrinsically linked to law and politics. Perhaps it was a coincidence that there was a woman lawyer in India who fought prominently in the family planning movement. Wadia’s career adds to the point that ‘birth control’ cannot be separated from socioeconomic development.

A few years before Wadia’s death, MS Swaminathan, who led India’s Green Revolution, said of Wadia that she knew that if our population policies were wrong, no one else would have a chance to be right.