Nobody likes a broken record. And yet here we go again - talking about how Indians need to talk about sex and sexuality; surrounded by gory examples of why we need to talk about sex and sexuality, but in fact hearing policymakers talk only about how talking about sex and sexuality will corrupt the kids, ruin the community and rend asunder the very country. Meanwhile sexual awkwardness, ignorance and confusion, and sexual misdemeanours, violence and intimidation carry on; while the corpses keep piling up. We agree that this is terrible, and something must be done about it.
The most eminent person currently refusing to join the dots is Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan. The "Vision for a New Millennium Health" [sic] section on his website lists admirable objectives such as a "major offensive against major killers like tobacco, tuberculosis, malaria, AIDS and others". He foresees "population control (becoming) a big movement" with "effective family planning programme", and plans to safeguard public health with "education of people about alcohol, tobacco and drug abuse as well as threat of unsafe sexual behaviour".
The same guy, on the same website, announces "'so-called' sex education to be banned" in schools. It's difficult to imagine how banning sex ed is going to advance the family planning programme or the major offensive on AIDS. When everyone jumped down his throat, he clarified that he is only opposed to "vulgar" sex education. Nobody has discovered what that means. Does that mean sex education that mentions sex? Is he worried that there will be classroom practicals? He also holds that abstinence beats condoms, because advocating condoms implies that it's okay to sleep with whomever you want as long as you're wearing a raincoat.
That gasp you hear is the sound of a thousand Indian values being shattered by the evil West.
Harsh Vardhan is quoted as saying that he's okay with "pedagogy that is scientific and culturally acceptable. Anything abrasive to common sensibilities and articulated as such by responsible persons should be discarded and replaced by consensually accepted learning processes".
It is embarrassing to have to remind a person licensed to practice modern medicine that science and culture have, often and famously, been incompatible over time and cultures. Remember a chap called Galileo? Consensually accepted learning processes arrested him for saying that the earth moves around the sun.
Not to confuse the issue, but the ancient Greeks first theorised, 2000 years ago, that the earth is round. Today, most societies on the planet are down with that idea - except for The Flat Earth Society, which continues to insist that the earth is flat. Harsh Vardhan represents a kind of Flat Earth Society view of sex education in India. A good deal of Indian society has moved beyond the no-sex-please attitude in which the good doctor appears to be stuck. Parents and schools see the need for kids to be taught appropriate sexual behaviour, to distinguish between various kinds of touch, to protect their sexual health and that of their partners, to learn a little basic anatomy. And, who knows, get a little counselling about relationships, sexual boundaries and etiquette, sexual safety and respect, sexual responsibility and health.
Doesn't that sound like the big thing we need, that we've been talking about since December 16, 2012? Women's safety and the problems of Indian sexuality and masculinity?
Sex education does not corrupt kids - good old biology does. If, that is, you're so in the dark ages that you think of sexuality as corruption, in which case you probably also think of it as an anti-national Western import.
The fact is, Harsh Vardhan, that Indian society - devoutly illiberal in so many ways - still can't get young people to stop fooling around with each other, regardless of whom they end up marrying. Just like all societies - Western or otherwise - it still can't prevent people from falling in love, or from committing adultery, nor indeed from wanting to have sex and then, by gum, having it. So you may as well educate young people on how the whole sex thing works - not just in their bodies, but in their hearts, minds, spirits, relationships, families and communities. Who knows, you may end up creating a gentler and a more just society.
Or you could keep banging on about Indian values and tradition, and let the kids keep paying the price of your hypocritical virtue.
This kind of regressive social thinking has recently been echoed and amplified in appalling sound bites from dozens of leaders and policymakers who openly advocate violence against women and clamping down on women's freedoms. The takeaway is that this government is no more interested than the last in improving the abysmal status of women - and women's safety - in India. If anything, it is likely to drag us backwards.
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
