Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat’s call for a “population control policy” on Wednesday may not be on the same page as the government’s affidavit in December 2020 which said it cannot coerce couples into having a “certain number of children” in a bid to curb population explosion.
Further, a 2016 Supreme Court judgment authored by Justice (now retired) Madan B. Lokur had also held that any policy which compelled “mass sterilisation” would amount to infringement of “reproductive freedoms”, especially that of the most vulnerable groups of society whose economic and social conditions make them easy targets of coercion.
Justice Lokur had written that “improved access, education and empowerment” and not coercion should be the guiding factors behind the government's population control campaign. “Policies of the government must not mirror the systemic discrimination prevalent in society,” the court had said in the judgment.
