Hindu Nationalist Calls for More Hindu Babies, Sparking Outrage

November 28, 2005

Source: Yahoo! News

Wire Service: Reuters

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051128/india_nm/india225269

On November 28, 2005 Reuters reported, "Leading Hindu hardliner K.S. Sudarshan has angered women and Muslims by pressing Hindus to have as many children as they can to avoid being swamped by Muslims. Sudarshan, who heads the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of the Bharatiya Janata Party which led India until last year, said a higher Hindu birth rate was vital to check a 'population imbalance'. 'Whenever new people come to me for blessings, I tell them: "Not less than three (children)". The more you can, the better,' he said at a function broadcast on television recently. Women's groups in Asia's third-largest economy, with a billion-plus people, said they were insulted and one group labeled Sudarshan's stand an 'agenda of hatred'. 'It is implied in his statement that a woman's reproductive faculties are to be employed solely to fulfil the agenda of a Hindu nationalist state -- like a reproductive machine,' said Malini Bhattacharya, a leading activist. 'As if the question of a woman's right does not even arise -- her right over her own body and health.'"