The 32-year-old Woman Who has Given Birth to 16 Kids
by kalyani10
India’s population is projected to overtake China – currently the most populous country in the world – by 2030 and while the Indian government spends billions of dollars every year on family planning campaigns, the message appears to reach few in the rural corners of the country. This was amply demonstrated by a media report1 of a woman who became a mother for the sixteenth time in her seventeen years of married life.
In November 2012, media reports highlighted the instance of a 32 year old woman in the north-western state of Rajasthan who gave birth to her sixteenth child at a government hospital in Nagaur, about 210 kilometers from the state capital Jaipur. The woman named Sheelu works as sweeper along with her husband Ratna Ram at Bugarda village in Jayal sub-division of the district.. In a span of seventeen years of married life, Sheelu has given birth to sixteen children - nine girls and seven boys out of whom six are deceased. Among the surviving twelve children, eight are girls and four are boys.
The newborn boy was her sixteenth child and the condition of mother and child were stated to be in danger. "The mother and the child have been kept under observation," claimed RK Meena, chief medical and health officer posted at Nagaur. However this does not appear to bother the family very much as Sheelu’s mother-in-law Geeta appeared to celebrate the birth of her sixteenth grandchild. When asked how the large family will manage on meager resources and that too in times of high inflation Geeta is believed to have replied, "God will take care of that,". While the response may seem typical of the fatalistic attitude at the heart of the country’s culture, it actually underscores brutal economic motives, "More hands will bring more income," the mother-in-law further told the reporters. In a country where social security is virtually non-existent and compulsory education of children still to be implemented, children continue to be seen as cheap labor and source of income for poor families.
The failure of family planning and education policies of the government, on both central and state level, were again brought to the fore with Sheelu’s case. While his husband Ram evaded questions about how the large family would provide for another mouth, villagers revealed that none of the children in the family went to school. His eldest daughter apparently went to school for some time but she was pulled out after third grade.
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Sheelu’s incident is not an isolated on in this country of a burgeoning population which according to 2011 statistics stands at more than 1.2 billion2. In January 2012, there was another media report3 of a woman giving birth to her sixteenth child in Damoh, from the backward region of Bundelkhand in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The mother in question is 36 year old woman named Jagrani and the wife of a marginal farmer . At the time of the birth of her sixteenth child, her eldest daughter was already eighteen years old. Out of sixteen children, nine including three daughters and six sons have managed to survive while the remaining six- two sons and four daughters- died after birth.
Dr Sangeeta Trivedi who supervised the delivery the baby told reporters that "the lady is anemic and the infant is underweight. If the child is not looked after properly, it may turn malnourished," and yet the grim prospects are of little concern to the couple who believe that children are the gift of God and always welcome. Apparently when doctors advised the woman to undergo a family planning operation, she refused saying she was too weak.
The example of families like Sheelu’s and Jagrani’s are typical of what ails Indian policies on family planning and education. Despite having one of the highest economic growth rates, India’s inability to emerge from the shadows of inequality and poverty is consistently blamed on its ever-expanding population.
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