India forcibly sterilised 8m men: One village remembers, 50 years later

The imposition of a state of national emergency on June 25, 1975, was India’s closest brush with dictatorship.

Uttawar, India — When everybody ran, towards the jungles and nearby villages, or dived into a well to hide from government officials, Mohammad Deenu stayed put.

His village, Uttawar, in the Mewat region of northern India’s Haryana state, about 90km (56 miles) from the capital, New Delhi, was surrounded by the police on that cold night in November 1976. Their ask: men of fertile age must assemble in the village ground.

India was 17 months into its closest brush with dictatorship – a state of national emergency imposed by then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, during which civil liberties were suspended. Thousands of political opponents were jailed without a trial, an otherwise rambunctious press was censored, and, backed by financial incentives from the World Bank and the United States, India embarked on a massive forced sterilisation programme.

Deenu and his 14 friends were among its targets. They were pushed into the forces’ vehicles and taken to ill-managed sterilisation camps. To Deenu, it was a “sacrifice” that saved the village and its future generations.

“When everyone was running to save themselves, some elders [of the village] realised that if no one is found, it would create even bigger, long-lasting troubles,” Deenu recalled, sitting on a torn wooden cot. “So, some men from the village were collected and given away.”