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Ford, Rockefeller, and Gandhi: Breaking Human Rights Barriers through Population Control, 1951-1977
Ishan Prasad Senior Division Historical Paper
Paper Length: 2,500 words
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“The superior power of population cannot be checked without producing misery or vice.”1 -Thomas Malthus, 1798 In 1951, India became the first country in the world to launch a national family planning
program.2 Backed by the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, the program tried to slow
population growth and thereby reverse India’s chronic underdevelopment. As money and
logistical support poured in, the Indian government developed a variety of public health
initiatives aimed at population control, most of which encouraged the widespread use of
contraception. But this American-backed Malthusian campaign collided with internal political
developments in 1975, when India’s Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, declared martial law,
ushering in a twenty-month period of authoritarian rule known as the “Emergency.” Emergency
witnessed a severe ramping-up of the family planning agenda, with a compulsory sterilization
campaign that cruelly targeted society’s most vulnerable. India’s family planning program, then,
set out to break perceived demographic barriers to economic development: Gandhi’s government
and American philanthropic organizations were convinced that India remained impoverished
because of its burgeoning population, and steadfastly attempted to remove that barrier to
economic advancement. However, in their zeal to break this demographic barrier, they ended up
smashing legal barriers that protected the Indian public from human rights abuses. As Malthus
ominously predicted, population control was only achievable through misery and vice.
1 Thomas R. Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, Anthony Flew ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1979 reprint), 79. 2 Ford Foundation Records, Catalogued Reports, Report 003673, Discussion of the Ford Foundation Role in Enhancing the Development of India's Family Planning Programs (1970), 29, Rockefeller Archive Center. In 2011, the Ford Foundation Archives were relocated from New York, NY to the Rockefeller Archive Center in Tarrytown, NY.
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Family Planning in India, 1951-1977
Immediately after gaining independence, India’s fledgling government was approached
by Douglas Ensminger, sociologist and Ford Foundation population consultant. Such
philanthropic organizations were, by the 1950’s, leading the charge for global population control,
with their sights set squarely on India.3 Initially rebuffed, Ensminger, along with John D.
Rockefeller III of the Rockefeller Foundation, eventually convinced India’s Health Minister “to
evolve some program activities in the field of family planning.”4 By 1951, a nation-wide
program had made its way into the First Five-Year Plan (1951-1956): a “cafeteria” approach was
adopted, whereby the public was provided with education and access to a smorgasbord of
contraceptive methods.5 By the Third Five-Year Plan (1961-1966), however, the limited success
of this approach spurred the development of more aggressive policies, including a vigorous
marketing campaign, more family planning clinics, and a target-oriented approach: the goal was
to reduce the birth rate by 40 percent.6 (Appendix C) Moreover, foreign activity and aid to the
3 Ford Foundation Records, Catalogued Reports, Report 001747, Population Control: India's Number One Problem (1953), 7, Rockefeller Archive Center. The Ford Foundation was founded in 1936 by Henry and Edsel Ford of the Ford Motor Corporation. It remains one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the world, doling out nearly $600 million annually in grants. See Ford Foundation, Grants, https://www.fordfoundation.org/about/the-ford-foundation-center-for-social-justice/ (accessed November 12, 2019). 4 Ford Foundation Records, Douglas Ensminger Oral History, Series A: Topics related to Non-Project Areas (F744), Box 1, Folder A3, “The Ford Foundation's with the Government of India Planning Commission” (1971), 11, Rockefeller Archive Center. The Rockefeller Foundation was established in 1913 by John D. Rockefeller, owner of Standard Oil Company. Today, this philanthropic organization still funds nearly $200 million per year in grants. See Rockefeller Foundation, Grants, https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/our-work/grants/ (accessed November 12, 2019). 5 Ford Foundation Records, Catalogued Reports, Report 001599, The History and Prospects for India's Family Planning Program (1970), 3.1-3.2, Rockefeller Archive Center. 6 The precise target was a reduction in the annual birth rate from 41 to 25 births per 1000 people. Douglas Ensminger, Douglas Ensminger Papers, 1951-1982, Box 1, Folder 25a, “Indian Family Planning—Failure Inevitable?” (1967), 4, Yale University Archive and Manuscripts Center; Ford Foundation Records, Report 003673, 38; Ford Foundation Records, Report 001599, 3.2-3.3; Ford Foundation Records, Catalogued Reports, Report 018008, The Turning Point: Change of Approach in the India Family Planning Program, 1951-1973 (1974), 6, Rockefeller Archive Center.
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program accelerated, as the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations bankrolled clinics, deployed
additional on-site consultants, and established multiple advisory “field offices” around India.7
The most visible feature of this renewed approach was the “family planning carnival” and
its mascot, the elephant with the red triangle, or “Lal Tikon.” Brainchildren of the Rockefeller
Foundation, they became tangible symbols of the program. The elephant moved from
village to village…broadcasting the idea of family planning…On one side she displays the well-known Red Triangle and the faces of a happy Indian couple with the words: ‘You don’t need another child’…On the other side, the sign bears another Red Triangle and says: ‘My name is Red Triangle. My job is spreading happiness.’8
Lal Tikon attended family planning carnivals throughout rural India, where festive activities
were meant to entice people to accept contraceptive methods. By the time Indira Gandhi took
office in 1966, festival organizers increasingly pushed vasectomies because they were quicker,
simpler, and cheaper than female sterilization.9
7 Ford Foundation Records, Catalogued Reports. Report 002586, Succinct Account of the Workings of the Foundation in India over the Last Seventeen Years (1968), 11, Rockefeller Archive Center. 8 Ford Foundation Records, Population Program, Office Files of Tim Rice, Series 1: Regional Files (FA678), Box 3, Folder Family Planning Program, “Letter from the Lal Tikon Society to Red Triangle Shareholder” (1967-76), 1, Rockefeller Archive Center. 9 Rockefeller Foundation Records, Field Offices, New Delhi, India, “Medical Programs in Rural Health Centres,” Series 112, Folder 1017: RG6, SG7 (FA 396), 1965-1967, Rockefeller Archive Center; Jagmohan, Island of Truth (Bombay: Vikas Publishing, 1978), 32. Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister from 1966-1977, and then again from 1980-1984.
“Lal Tikon,” the family planning elephant. Note the inverted (red) triangles. (credit: Getty Images)
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Gandhi’s administration quickly began marching in lockstep with American consultants.
Gandhi herself was highly committed to the cause, and opened the door to increased support
from outside organizations; she also faced pressure from President Lyndon Johnson, who
repeatedly linked food aid to population control.10 The end result was yet another intensification
of the family planning program: the government began offering monetary incentives for
sterilization, and instituted mass, mobile vasectomy camps, the first of which occurred in the
southern state of Kerala.11 (Appendix A)
Gandhi with Ensminger (center): Foundation officials joked that “the [Indian] government does whatever the Ford Foundation says it should do in Family Planning.”12 (credit: Rockefeller Archive Center)
10 Lyndon B. Johnson, “Special Message to the Congress Proposing an Emergency Food Aid Program for India, March 30, 1966”, Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley eds., The American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/239502 (accessed January 10, 2020); “Summary Record of Conversation between President Johnson and Prime Minister Gandhi, March 20, 1966,” Office of the Historian: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Volume XXV: South Asia, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v25/d307 (accessed January 10, 2020); Indira Gandhi, “Interview by Jonathan Dimbleby, Thames Television,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8aETK5pQR4 (accessed April 16, 2020). 11 Ford Foundation Records, Population Program, Office Files of Tim Rice, Folder India Vasectomy Camps, “The Ernakulam Camps” (1971), 8-9, Rockefeller Archive Center. 12 Rockefeller Foundation, Population Council Records, Central Files, Series 1 (FA432), Box 84, Folder 799, “SJS: Diary Notes” (1971), 2, Rockefeller Archive Center.
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The final stage in India’s family planning experiment began June 25, 1975, when Indian
courts closed in on Gandhi for election tampering, and she—citing “internal political
disturbances”—declared a state of emergency.13 The next twenty months witnessed summary
arrests of political opponents, censorship, and a suspension of civil liberties.14 At the core of the
Emergency agenda was family planning: Gandhi billed Emergency as a campaign to eliminate
poverty through population control, showing the world India’s “iron will” and “strictest
discipline.”15 She instituted nation-wide “Family Planning Fortnights,” and the “Flesh Express”
(a propaganda-plastered train, where vasectomies were performed as it stood on the platform).16
Emergency also increased incentives for sterilization, and introduced disincentives for those who
refused. (Appendix B) Although the central government didn’t legislate compulsion, states were
encouraged to do so.17 Such measures elicited much dissatisfaction, ultimately leading to
Gandhi’s ousting in 1977, and an abrupt end to India’s family planning experiment.18
Breaking Demographic Barriers?
In 1951, India’s population sat at 365 million, and for the Indian government and its
philanthropic consultants, the stakes couldn’t have been higher.19 Government officials believed
13 “India Declares Emergency; Foes of India Arrested; Internal Threat Cited,” World News Digest, June 28, 1975. 14 Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, Report of the Fact-Finding Committee: Slum Clearance, Demolitions, Etc. and Firing in Turkman Gate During the Emergency (New Delhi: Government of India Press, 1977), 85-86; Loren Jenkins, “An Era of Discipline,” Newsweek, August 4, 1975. 15 Jenkins, “An Era of Discipline,” 1. 16 Family Planning Association of India, Report of the Proceedings of the Seventh All-India Conference of the Family Planning Association of India, 14th-18th February, 1976 (Bombay: FPAI, 1976), 168. 17 “Population Policy Not Anti-Child,” The Hindustan Times, April 29, 1976, in Ford Foundation Records, Catalogued Reports, Report 004248, India's Population Policy, 10, Rockefeller Archive Center; Government of India, Shah Commission Inquiry Third and Final Report, August 6, 1978, 162, https://archive.org/details/ShahCommissionOfInquiry3rdFinalReport/page/n1/mode/2up; "Compulsory Family Planning: States to Have Free Hand,” The Hindu, April 29, 1976, in Ford Foundation Records, Report 004248, 1. 18 “Indira Gandhi Loses Election,” The Guardian, March 22, 1977, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/23/indira-gandhi-india-election-archive-1977 (accessed January 23, 2020).19 Ford Foundation Records, Catalogued Reports, Report 001713, Some Observations on the Evaluation of the Indian National Family Planning Program (1967), 2-3, Rockefeller Archive Center.
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the young nation’s economic security hinged on slowing population growth, whereas the Ford
and Rockefeller Foundations went one step further, reasoning that regional—nay, global—
political and economic stability depended on the population project in India. Thus, India’s family
planning project represented an effort to break perceived demographic barriers to peace and
prosperity.
India’s government sought to tackle poverty and underdevelopment within its borders
through population control. The First Five-Year Plan of 1951 mandated “a reduction of the birth
rate necessary to stabilize...the national economy.”20 Linking India’s demographics to a healthy
economy became increasingly common throughout our period. By 1976, Health Minister Karan
Singh made the argument explicitly, announcing that India was
facing a population explosion of crisis dimensions which has greatly diluted the fruits of the remarkable economic progress of the last two decades...If the future of the nation is to be ensured, and the goal of removing poverty to be attained, the population problem will have to be treated as a top national priority.21
While there was some disagreement among MPs over the details of family planning, there was
near-unanimous agreement on the general thesis: the desultory effects of overpopulation must be
overcome for India to prosper. (Appendix D)
The Ford and Rockefeller Foundations agreed, but further linked regional and global
stability to Indian population control. The genuine fear of India’s burgeoning population is
palpable in Foundation documents, littered as they are with terms like “alarming,” “staggering,”
and colorful predictions of the world being “throttled and destroyed” by India’s “masses of
humanity.”22 In a May 1965 letter, Ensminger wrote that “wide-scale reduction in births must be
20 Government of India, “Population in India's First Five Year Plan (1951-1956),” in Population and Development Review, Archives 23:2 (1997), 401. 21 Ford Foundation Records, Report 004248, “Birth Control Must for Removing Poverty: Text of National Population Policy Announced by Dr. Karan Singh,” 8. 22 Rockefeller Foundation Records, John D. Rockefeller III Papers, Population Interests: Williamsburg Conference Sessions, 1952 (RG5), Series I, OMR Files, Box 85, Folder 720, Rockefeller Archive Center; Ford Foundation
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achieved quickly, or India will be swamped by the population tide.”23 He later cast this as an
Asia-wide priority, forecasting “the imminence of catastrophic deterioration in Asia,”—both
political and economic—if India cannot control its population.24 This was, after all, the height of
the Cold War, and Foundation consultants feared that a poor, underdeveloped India would fall to
the red tide of Communism just as China had: they were “scared of...Communist propagandists
who are filtering into [India’s] villages.”25 Guided by the Kissinger Report of 1974, which
argued that India’s overpopulation made it vulnerable to Soviet encroachment, Ensminger vowed
to solve this demographic challenge and create “a strong anchorage in Asia for democratic forms
of government.”26
Arguably, Ford, Rockefeller, and Gandhi failed to break this perceived demographic
barrier. Although 22 million Indians were sterilized between 1951 and 1977, and approximately
20 million births averted, the population still grew by more than a million each month, nearly
doubling during this period.27 Today, it’s abundantly clear that there was never any chance of
Records, Report 001599, 1, 2.1; Ensminger, Douglas Ensminger Papers, 1951-1982, Box 1, Folder 27, “Television and Family Planning” (1968), 1. 23 Rockefeller Foundation, Population Council Records, Central Files, Series 1 (FA432), Box 84, Folder 799, “Douglas Ensminger, Comments as Requested from Staff” (May 1965), 4. 24 Ensminger, Douglas Ensminger Papers, 1951-1982, Box 1, Folder 25a, “Indian Family Planning—Failure Inevitable?”, 2.25 Rockefeller Foundation Records, John D. Rockefeller III Papers, Population Interests: Williamsburg Conference Sessions, 1952, Box 85, Folder 721, 12. 26 U.S. Government, National Security Council, National Security Study Memorandum NSSM 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (The Kissinger Report), December 10, 1974, 28, 57-58, https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pcaab500.pdf; Ensminger, Douglas Ensminger Papers, 1951-1982, Box A, Folder A7, “The Foundation's Objectives and Reasons for Its Presence in India” (1975), 1, Yale University Archive and Manuscript Center. 27 Government of India, Ministry of Health and Family Planning, Family Planning Quarterly: Report on the Progress of the Family Planning Programme (New Delhi: Government of India Press), 31; James N. Wallace, “The Price India Pays for Indira Gandhi's 'Reforms,” U.S. News and World Report, January 24, 1977. It has been suggested that the system of incentives and disincentives may have led to forged and falsified sterilization certificates; the actual number of people sterilized, then, is an estimate. See Emma Tarlo, Unsettling Memories: Narratives of the Emergency in Delhi (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 149.
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“turning off the faucet this side of 1 billion Indians,” as population control advocates had
envisioned.28
Breaking Legal Barriers: A Human Rights Tragedy
In their zeal to break demographic barriers, India’s family planners ended up breaking
legal barriers that protected human rights. The drastic measures seen during Emergency involved
an undeniable element of coercion, put lives at risk, and were laced with eugenic ideology. The
program thus violated a whole host of national and customary international law safeguarding
civil liberties. Article 21 of India’s Constitution stipulates “no person shall be deprived of his life
or personal liberty,” and mandates that this right cannot be suspended, even in a state of
emergency; Article 15, relevant to eugenics, prohibits caste-based discrimination.29 Article 16 of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—the foundation of human rights law, signed by both
India and the U.S.—guarantees adults “the right to...found a family.”30 Moreover, the UN
Population Division specifies that population policies be “consistent with the internationally and
nationally recognized human right of individual freedom,” and that “all...individuals have the
basic right to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children.”31 These
are just a few examples of national and international law protecting individual liberties; the list
could go on.32
28 National Security Council, Kissinger Report, 61. 29 Government of India, Central Government Act: Article 21 in the Constitution of India, 1949, https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1199182/ (accessed February 21, 2020); Government of India, Central Government Act: Article 15 in the Constitution of India, 1949, https://indiankanoon.org/doc/609295/ (accessed February 21, 2020). 30 United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 16, https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/ (accessed February 2, 2020). 31 United Nations Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World Population Plan of Action (August 1974), 10, https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/generalassembly/docs/globalcompact/E_CONF.60_19_Plan.pdf (accessed February 2, 2020). 32 See, for example United Nations, Charter of the United Nations, Articles 55 and 56, https://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/un-charter-full-text/, (accessed January 2, 2020); see also the United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 3.
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India’s family planning program broke these legal barriers in numerous ways, the most
glaring of which was the use of coercion. Sterilization targets were achieved through a coercive
system of incentives and disincentives. In 1966, for instance, India adopted the Ford
Foundation’s recommendation to pay those who “motivated” others to “accept” vasectomies—30
Rupees per “acceptor” at the outset; 150 Rupees by Emergency.33 (Appendix B) Additionally,
targets were established for government employees: schoolteachers, for example, were required
to motivate a specific number of acceptors from among the school’s parents, or face penalties,
demotion, even termination. A student in Delhi thus recalls, “my Sanskrit teacher...told [my
father] to go for the operation or else he would fail me.”34 Acceptors were also offered perks,
including cash, cars, scholarships, homes, and land. Another Delhiite remembers government
officials “demolishing jhuggis [shanties], but they said we could stay if we got sterilised...So I
got sterilised to get this plot.”35 Similarly, criminals accepting vasectomies were offered
amnesty, and—even more egregious—charges were sometimes falsified to induce sterilization.36
Common disincentives included cutting electricity to “recalcitrant villagers” and denying them
healthcare.37 Most notable was the northeastern state of Bihar’s policy, where ration cards for the
poor were restricted to three children per family.38 Policies like these disproportionately affected
lower-caste, poorer communities, and purposely so. Population control was partly an exercise in
eugenics: the government and its American consultants privately admitted their desire to enhance
33 Rockefeller Foundation, Working Papers: Third Bellagio Conference on Population, May 10-12, 1973 (New York: The Rockefeller Foundation, 1974), 64; Ford Foundation Records, Report 004248, 4; for the Ford Foundation's recommendation on cash payments, see Ford Foundation Records, Population Program, Office Files of Tim Rice, Box 3, Folder “India—Incentives in the Ecology and Adoption of Family Planning in Rural India,” 52-54. 34 Tarlo, 148; Government of India, Shah Commission Inquiry, 174. 35 Tarlo, 148-149; Government of India, Report of the Fact-Finding Committee: Slum Clearance, Demolitions, Etc. and Firing in Turkman Gate During the Emergency, 134.36 Ford Foundation Records, Catalogued Reports, Report 003675, The Family Planning Program in Greater Bombay (1976), 2-3, Rockefeller Archive Center.37 Government of India, Shah Commission Inquiry, 29. 38 Government of India, Shah Commission Inquiry, 173.
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the “quality” of the race by reducing fertility among the “tradition-bound, poorer, less healthy,
less educated.”39 (Appendix D)
Ensminger observes a vasectomy being performed in India. (credit: Rockefeller Archive Center)
Yet coercive measures targeting the poor didn’t satisfy India’s family planners: they
ultimately resorted to compulsion. By 1972, multiple states had passed legislation mandating
sterilization for couples with three or more children. This led to the forcible rounding-up of
Indian men: “police were used to surround, round-up, and coerce people...Persons were forcibly
taken from villages, bus stands, and railway stations for sterilisation.”40 Such an incident
occurred in the Muslim village of Uttawar, just west of Delhi. On the night of November 6,
1976, police ordered all village men to report to the bus stand. They then searched houses,
looting and vandalizing, and finally herded the men—550 in all—onto buses for forcible
sterilization. To avoid such raids, many men slept in the fields at night, and varied their routines
39Rockefeller Foundation, Population Council Records: General File, Series 1, RG1 (FA210), Box 32, Folder 9, “Minutes of a Meeting of the Subcommittee on the Quality Aspects of Population Held in New Delhi” (1964), 2-4, Rockefeller Archive Center; Rockefeller Foundation, Working Papers: Third Bellagio Conference on Population, 45. 40Government of India, Shah Commission of Inquiry, 178.
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in the day.41 Compulsory sterilization provoked multiple riots, the deadliest right outside Dujana
Camp, a notoriously coercive vasectomy camp targeting poor Muslims.42
Finally, medical conditions in camps and clinics were abysmal. Doctors at the camps
“were always overworked and were constantly under strain,” leading to subpar medical care.43
One surgeon recalls being “told to do the operation on as many men as possible,” in unsanitary,
crowded camps.44 Another remembers advising the government to wait until after the hot season,
so bacteria wouldn’t spread as easily, but was ignored.45 In some camps, hundreds of
vasectomies were performed daily, “with scalpels and forceps...sanitized once, in the morning.”46
Unsurprisingly, many men died from botched operations and post-surgical infections;
conservative estimates put the figure near 2000.47
Thus, India’s family planning experiment smashed legal barriers safeguarding the right to
life, liberty, reproductive freedoms, and freedom from caste-based discrimination. Family
planning policies disproportionately drew from among lower-caste and minority communities,
forcing them to submit to sterilization procedures they didn’t want. Moreover, all evidence
indicates that India’s family planners, both foreign and domestic, consciously trampled upon
these legal rights—they knew what they were doing. In a July 1976 speech to the Indian
Association of Physicians, Gandhi argued
We must act now decisively and bring down the birth rate speedily...We should not hesitate to take steps which might be described as drastic. Some personal rights have to
41 Lewis M. Simons, “Compulsory Sterilization Provokes Fear, Contempt,” Washington Post, July 4, 1977, 3.42 Government of India, Report of the Fact-Finding Committee: Slum Clearance, Demolitions, Etc. and Firing in Turkman Gate During the Emergency, 137-138, 405. 43 Dr. Dilip Prasad, “Phone Interview by the Author,” Westport, Connecticut, U.S.A., February 24, 2020. 44 Dr. Dilip Prasad, “Phone Interview.” 45 Dr. Shyam Sinha, “Phone Interview by the Author,” Westport, Connecticut, U.S.A., February 28, 2020.46 Dr. Shyam Sinha, “Phone Interview.” Dr. Sinha and Dr. Prasad's testimonials are corroborated in other primary sources, such as John Dayal and Ajoy Bose, For Reasons of State: Delhi under Emergency (New Delhi, India: Ess-Ess Publications, 1977), Chapter 5, 120-157. 47 Government of India, Shah Commission of Inquiry, 167.
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be kept in abeyance, for the human rights of the nation, the right to live, the right to progress.48
Ford Foundation advisors agreed: Ensminger knew that “in a free society...all the Government of
India should do” is make “information as well as specific methods” of contraception available,
but given the circumstances, extreme measures were needed to “provide the greatest good for the
greatest people.”49 Even the U.S. Congress weighed in, stating “the repressive actions of Mrs.
Gandhi’s government are squarely in conflict with international law norms of human rights.”50
India’s family planners, then, were comfortable sacrificing human rights in order to overcome
demographic barriers. To them, the latter were more consequential than the former.
Contexts, Conclusions
What contexts engendered family planning in India? The Ford and Rockefeller
Foundations were undoubtedly inspired by the neo-Malthusian movement of the postwar period,
kicked off by rapid population growth and the publication of influential works like Paul Ehrlich’s
Population Bomb.51 As discussed above, they—along with U.S. officials like Kissinger and
Johnson—were also motivated by Cold War Containment policy, and by a well-established
eugenics movement dating back to the 1920s with Buck v. Bell and Margaret Sanger’s birth
control activism.52 (Appendix D)
48 Government of India, Shah Commission of Inquiry, 154. 49 Ford Foundation Records, Population Program, Office Files of Tim Rice, Box 3, Folder “India—Incentives in the Ecology and Adoption of Family Planning in Rural India,” 49; Rockefeller Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund: Special Studies Project, (RG VC4), Box 21, Folder 237, 18, Rockefeller Archive Center.50 United States Congress, Human Rights in India: Hearings before the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, Ninety-Fourth Congress, Second Session, June 23-September 23, 1976 (Washington: U.S. Government Print Office, 1976), https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pur1.32754074689708&view=1up&seq=51 (accessed January 1, 2020), 45. 51 Paul R. Ehrlich, The Population Bomb (Rivercity, MA: Rivercity Press) 1975 reprint (originally published 1968). 52 Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927), Cornell Law School: Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/274/200 (accessed April 20, 2020), 207; Margaret Sanger, “The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda,” October 1921 in New York University ed., The Public Papers of Margaret Sanger: Web Edition,https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=238946.xml (accessed April 14, 2020).
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India’s government, similarly animated by eugenics and Malthusian ideology, was also
struggling to define itself. Since Independence in 1947, the young state had skirted the boundary
between liberty and tyranny; Gandhi leaned towards the latter.
Dubbed “Empress of India,” she slowly expanded her personal
powers, compromising democratic ideals by bypassing elected
Cabinet members and manipulating the judiciary, for example.53
Emergency represented a culmination of this power grab, as Gandhi
redeployed her wildly popular election slogan, Garibi Hatao!
(abolish poverty), to justify an unprecedented expansion of power.54
Public backlash, however, temporarily ended India’s flirtation with
authoritarianism, as Gandhi was ignominiously booted from office
in 1977.55 She never took such actions again, even after returning to
government in 1980.
India’s family planning experiment raises many questions. Who determines which
barriers need breaking? Who defines the greater good? Should external philanthropic
organizations, answerable to nobody, have a say? These issues are critically relevant, as the
world still struggles with overpopulation, without any better solutions at hand. Indeed, the
draconian policies highlighted here linger into the present day, and they’ve been implemented in
53 Anthony J. Lukas, “India is as Indira Does,” New York Times, April 4, 1976, Section SM, 5 https://www.nytimes.com/1976/04/04/archives/india-is-as-indira-does-with-total-censorship-guaranteeing-a-docile.html (accessed April 16, 2020); Tripurduman Singh, “When Nehru Put the Constitution in Danger,” Times of India, January 26, 2020, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/voices/when-nehru-put-the-constitution-in-danger/ (accessed April 20, 2020). 54 Indira Gandhi, “Speech: PM Indira Promises Garibi Hatao,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIKu0n72mKI (accessed April 20, 2020). 55 William Borde, “India Returns to Democracy,” New York Times, March 22, 1977, 1 (accessed April 16, 2020); Government of India, “General Election Results, 1977,” https://www.elections.in/parliamentary-constituencies/1977-election-results.html (accessed April 12, 2020); William Borde, “Gandhi Arrested on Charge of Misuse of Premier's Office,” New York Times, October 4, 1977, 1 (accessed April 16, 2020).
Censored political cartoon from the Emergency period. It was censored by placing a “D” after “Save.” (credit: Tarlo, Unsettling Memories)
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places like Indonesia and Africa as well. In the short term, public backlash against coercive
family planning in India was decisive—the government following Gandhi’s didn’t dare pursue
such policies.56 But in the long term, family planning survived: 2014 saw 15 women die in the
central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. The women were paid to undergo tubectomies in mobile
camps funded by USAID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, performed by a doctor
meeting government-set sterilization targets.57 Some barriers, once broken, never mend.
56 Lewis Simons, “Compulsory Sterilization Provokes Fear, Contempt,” Washington Post, July 4, 1977 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1977/07/04/compulsory-sterilization-provokes-fear-contempt/c2e28747-b5f1-4551-9bfe-98b552d8603f/ (accessed April 10, 2020); Rajinder Puri, “Morarji is a Changed Man,” Illustrated Weekly of India XCVIII: 33 (August 14-20, 1977), 33.57 Celeste McGovern, Population Research Institute, “USAID Funding of Sterilization Camps in India,” January 13, 2015, https://www.pop.org/usaid-funding-of-sterilization-camps-in-india-part-1/ (accessed February 29, 2020). USAID, or the United States Agency for International Development, is an agency of the U.S. government tasked with assisting in development projects around the world. See https://www.usaid.gov/. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a private American philanthropic foundation, launched in 2000 by Bill Gates of the Microsoft Corporation. See https://www.gatesfoundation.org/.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Unpublished Primary Sources Ensminger, Douglas. Douglas Ensminger Papers, 1951-1982. Box A; 1-4. Yale University
Manuscripts and Archives, New Haven, CT.
Ensminger's papers gave me insight into the objectives, workings, and motives of the Ford Foundation in India during the entire family planning experiment. He was the lead representative on the ground in India for the Foundation.
Ford Foundation Records. Catalogued Reports. Report 001599, The History and Prospects for
India's Family Planning Program, 1970. Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY.
This report laid out the history of Ford's activities as well as the Indian government's policies towards family planning between 1950 and 1970.
Ford Foundation Records. Catalogued Reports. Report 001713, Some Observations on the
Evaluation of the Indian National Family Planning Program, 1967. Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY.
This report was very helpful in demonstrating how high a priority population control in India was for the Foundation, not just for India itself, but for the stability of Asia and the world.
Ford Foundation Records. Catalogued Reports. Report 001747, Population Control: India's
Number One Problem, 1953. Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY.
This report made clear how population control advocates targeted India as their number one priority, over Africa, China, and Latin America. They felt that the biggest demographic problem was in India.
Ford Foundation Records. Catalogued Reports. Report 002586, Succinct Account of the
Workings of the Foundation in India over the Last Seventeen Years, 1968. Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY.
This report provided me with a clear, chronological account on the specific details of the Ford Foundation's activities in India with respect to family planning. It discussed specific clinics that were built and specific advertising campaigns that were devised.
Ford Foundation Records. Catalogued Reports. Report 003673, Discussion of the Ford
Foundation Role in Enhancing the Development of India's Family Planning Programs, 1970. Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY.
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This report discussed more details on the Foundation's activities on India, including the attempts to influence Indian government officials, and the development of the family planning program in the early years.
Ford Foundation Records. Catalogued Reports. Report 003675, The Family Planning Program in
Greater Bombay, 1976. Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY.
This report helped me understand the many different ways that incentives and disincentives were employed to achieve the maximum results. It specifically discussed the wisdom of using incentives on prisoners and those accused of crimes.
Ford Foundation Records. Catalogued Reports. Report 004248, India's Population Policy, 1976.
Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY.
This report discussed family planning during the Emergency years; it really helped me understand how coercion and compulsion operated in the context of the Emergency.
Ford Foundation Records. Catalogued Reports. Report 004973, Community Incentives and the
Adoption of Family Planning, 1969. Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY.
This report gave me detailed insight into the very complicated system of incentives and disincentives that were implemented both before and during Emergency.
Ford Foundation Records. Catalogued Reports. Report 018008, The Turning Point: Change of
Approach in the India Family Planning Program, 1951-1973, 1974. Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY.
This report helped me understand how Family planning policy changed from its inception in 1951 to Emergency in 1975.
Ford Foundation Records. Douglas Ensminger Oral History, Series A: Topics related to Non-
Project Areas (F744), Box 1. Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY.
This report gave me more insight into Ensminger's interactions with the Indian government and his ideas on population control.
Ford Foundation Records. Population Program, Office Files of Tim Rice. Series 1: Regional
Files (FA678). Box 3. Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY.
Tim Rice was a population consultant in India; his files were very helpful in understanding how policies were implemented differently in the various states in India.
Phone Interview by the Author. Dr. Dilip Prasad. Westport, Connecticut, U.S.A., February 24,
2020.
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Dr. Prasad was a surgeon in the state of Bihar during the Emergency. This conversation helped me understand how much pressure the doctors were under, and how it affected their performance in the clinics and camps.
Phone Interview by the Author. Dr. Shyam Sinha. Westport, Connecticut, U.S.A., February 28, 2020.
Dr. Sinha was a surgeon in New Delhi during the Emergency. This conversation helped me understand the unsanitary conditions in the clinics and camps, and how the procedures endangered the patients. More importantly, I understood how powerless physicians were to change the situation.
Rockefeller Foundation Records. Field Office Reports. Series 112, Folders 1009-1017, RG6, SG7 (FA 396), 1965-1967, Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY.
These files contained reports from the multiple advisory field offices that were set up around India by the Rockefeller Foundation. They were very helpful in providing information on the family planning carnivals and the kind of contraception that was most aggressively marketed in the rural areas.
Rockefeller Foundation Records. John D. Rockefeller III Papers. Population Interests:
Williamsburg Conference Sessions, 1952 (RG5). Series I, OMR Files. Box 85, Folder 720. Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY.
This helped me understand the eugenic ideology that tainted family planning policy; the global concerns of the Foundation were addressed freely at this conference.
Rockefeller Foundation Records. John D. Rockefeller III Papers. Population Interests: Williamsburg Conference Sessions, 1952 (RG5). Series I, OMR Files. Box 85, Folder 713-718. Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY
These files contain statistical information on India's population that the Rockefeller Foundation found relevant to the population project. It listed India's total population when the family planning experiment began.
Rockefeller Foundation. Population Council Records: Central Files. Series 1- 4 (FA432). Box
84, Folder 799, "Douglas Ensminger, Comments as Requested from Staff," May 1965, and "SJS: Diary Notes," 1971. Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY.
This helped me understand why the Ford Foundation backed the drastic measures of the Emergency. It demonstrated clearly how terrified they were of overpopulation in India. It also helped me understand how closely the Indian government and the Ford Foundation were aligned on the issue of family planning, and how much Indira Gandhi was personally devoted to the cause.
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Rockefeller Foundation. Population Council Records: General File. Series 1, RG1 (FA210). Box 1, Folder 7, "Ad-Hoc Committee on Eugenics," 1957. Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY.
This provided more insight into eugenics in the program; specifically, it discussed various genetic studies that the Foundation deemed relevant to population control.
Rockefeller Foundation. Population Council Records: General File. Series 1, RG1 (FA210).
Box 1, Folder 470, "Notes on Population and Institutions in India based in part on Conversations During March and April, 1954," 1954. Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY.
This folder focused on the population control program and children’s health, arguing that children suffer because of overpopulation.
Rockefeller Foundation. Population Council Records: General File. Series 1, RG1 (FA210).
Box 32, Folder 9, "Minutes of a Meeting of the Subcommittee on the Quality Aspects of Population Held in New Delhi," 1964. Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY.
This, again, highlighted the eugenics in the family planning program, not just on the part of the Rockefeller Foundation, but on the part of the Indian government. It contains correspondence between the Foundation and the American Eugenics Society.
Rockefeller Foundation. Rockefeller Brothers Fund: Special Studies Project. (RG VC4). Box 21,
Folder 237, 1972. Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, NY.
This helped me understand why the Foundation and the Indian government developed the policies they did during Emergency. It details why they thought population control, no matter how draconian, was good in the long run.
Published Primary Sources Berelson, Bernard, Richmond K. Anderson, Oscar Harkavy, John Maier, W. Parker Mauldin, and
Sheldon J. Segal, eds. Family Planning and Population Programs: A Review of World Developments. Chicago, Il: University of Chicago Press, 1966. This book described how countries went about limiting their populations; it was written by leading figures in the population control movement. For example, it talked about vasectomies in India, and how the idea of population control spread and was used throughout the world at different times. This source gave me an overview of my topic and helped me get a general idea for the trends throughout the world.
Borde, William. “India Returns to Democracy.” New York Times, March 22, 1977, 1. Accessed via NexisUni Academic.
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This article discussed Prime Minister's Morarji's administration (who took over after Gandhi). It made me realize why Gandhi was kicked out of office and also why the next administration abruptly ended the sterilization policies.
-----. “Gandhi Arrested on Charge of Misuse of Premier's Office.” New York Times, October 4,
1977, 1. Accessed via NexisUni Academic.
This article detailed how deep the public's animosity towards Gandhi was after the Emergency. It helped me understand how public backlash helped end her policies.
Buck v. Bell, 27 U.S. 200. Cornell Law School: Legal Information Institute.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/274/200. Accessed April 20, 2020. This source gave me insight into how the Eugenics movement used sterilization and bearth
control as tools. I was also amazed to see how some of the same ideas that were documented by the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations were used in the Buck v. Bell case as well.
Dayal, John, and Ajoy Bose. For Reasons of State: Delhi under Emergency. New Delhi, India:
Ess Ess Publications, 1977. This was a primary source, and John Dayal and Ajoy Bose were in India during the Emergency. This outlined a lot of the abuses against human rights that occurred during the emergency, such as censorship of the press, and the arresting of political opponents, and most significantly, the horrible, unsanitary conditions in the vasectomy camps. This gave me a grounding for my argument: human rights barriers were broken instead of demographic barriers.
Ehrlich, Paul R. The Population Bomb. Rivercity, MA: Rivercity Press, 1975 reprint.
First published in 1968, this was a Malthusian-inspired book that discussed how the world was going to destroy itself, and humanity was going to experience a hellish end if we did not control our populations. This book was instrumental in kicking off the neo-Malthusian movement of the post-World War II era. This gave me insight on what motivated Indira Gandhi and the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations.
Family Planning Association of India. Population Education for the Younger Generation.
Bombay, India: Family Planning Association of India, nd. This book provided a lot of useful statistics and marketing strategies that was used to promote sterilization in Indian villages. This helped me understand how so many Indians were rounded up and got vasectomies performed.
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Family Planning Association of India. Report of the Proceedings of the Seventh All-India Conference of the Family Planning Association of India, 14th-18th February, 1976. Bombay: FPAI, 1976.
This report highlighted Emergency measures regarding family planning. It helped me understand how family planning was central to the Emergency agenda.
Gandhi, Indira. “Interview by Jonathan Dimbleby, Thames Television.” July 1977.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8aETK5pQR4. Accessed April 16, 2020.
Gandhi discussed her motivations for declaring a state of emergency, tried to explain the reason for the sterilization measures that she took, and she also addressed the pressure that she felt from the Johnson Administration to achieve population control.
Gandhi, Indira. “Speech: PM Indira Promises Garibi Hatao." July 1977.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIKu0n72mKI. Accessed April 20, 2020.
This was a speech that Gandhi gave, trying to rally the masses behind her Emergency program. It made me understand how she drew on earlier campaign rhetoric to justify increased powers for the central government.
Government of India. Central Government Act: Article 21 in the Constitution of India, 1949.
https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1199182/. Accessed February 21, 2020. This was one of the Articles in the Indian Constitution, which protected the rights of
Indian civilians. This helped me ground my argument in the fact that the Indian government was quite literally breaking human rights barriers that were established in the Constitution.
Government of India. “General Election Results, 1977.” https://www.elections.in/parliamentary-
constituencies/1977-election-results.html. Accessed April 12, 2020.
This website provided me with statistics on the election of 1977; it helped me understand how resounding Gandhi's defeat was. It also contained exit poll interviews an statistics highlighting the fact that most people voted against her based on her sterilization policies.
Government of India. Ministry of Home Affairs. Report of the Fact-Finding Committee: Slum
Clearance, Demolitions, Etc. and Firing in Turkman Gate During the Emergency. New Delhi: Government of India Press, 1977.
This was a report of the Emergency policies in a poor Muslim community. This demonstrated how Indians were coerced into getting a vasectomy. The name of this camp was Dujana.
Government of India. Shah Commission Inquiry Third and Final Report. August 6, 1978.
https://archive.org/details/ShahCommissionOfInquiry3rdFinalReport/page/n1/mode/2up;
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This was a full inquiry into the actions taken by the Indian government. This highlighted the government abuse as well as how the Indian people reacted to the mistreatment. This helped me ground my argument in the human rights barriers that were broken.
Government of India. "Population in India's First Five Year Plan (1951-1956)." Population and
Development Review, Archives23:2 (1997): 399-403. JSTOR. This detailed the original policies of the Five-Year Plan, which discussed the ways in
which India was going to control its population. This gave insight into the specific ways that human rights barriers were being broken.
"India Declares Emergency; Foes of India Arrested; Internal Threat Cited." World News Digest,
June 28, 1975. Nexis Uni Academic. This gave insight into some of the human rights barriers that were broken during the
Emergency that did not directly have to do with population control. This highlighted some of the other ways that the Indian government abused the Indian people.
“Indira Gandhi Loses Election.” The Guardian, March 22, 1977.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/23/indira-gandhi-india-election-archive-1977. Accessed January 23, 2020.
This article detailed how and why Gandhi lost the election of 1977. It detailed the nature of the public backlash against her family planning policies, and it detailed how the next administration had to tiptoe around the issue. It made me realize how her administration ended because of her sterilization policies.
Jagannadham, V., ed. Family Planning in India: Policy and Administration. New Delhi, India:
Indian Institute of Public Administration, 1973. This book outlined how the policies changed during the Emergency and why they were developed. This gave me a good grasp on the different policies that were used and help me keep track of the different ways that men were forced to get vasectomies.
Jagmohan. Island of Truth. Bombay: Vikas Publishing, 1978.
The author of this book was a policeman working in New Delhi during Emergency. He details the nature of the sterilization campaign in the city. I especially learned a lot about the compulsory nature of the program, and the focus on specific caste and religious minorities.
Lyndon B. Johnson. "Special Message to the Congress Proposing an Emergency Food Aid
Program for India." Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley eds., The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/239502. Accessed January 10, 2020. This book showed how Lyndon B. Johnson consistently linked food aid to population control. In this speech, President Johnson told Congress that they would give food aid to
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countries that had made progress in controlling their population. This gave me insight on how the American government was also involved in population control around the world and how they were able to push their ideas onto other countries.
Lukas, Anthony J. “India is as Indira Does.” New York Times, April 4, 1976. Section SM, 5. https://www.nytimes.com/1976/04/04/archives/india-is-as-indira-does-with-total- censorship-guaranteeing-a-docile.html. Accessed April 16, 2020.
This article, written during the height of the Emergency period highlighted the authoritarian measures put in place by Gandhi. It helped me understand the broader political context for the intensification of the family planning program during Emergency.
Jenkins, Loren. "An Era of Discipline." Newsweek, August 4, 1975. Nexis Uni Academic. Jenkins excerpted parts of Indira Gandhi’s speech right after she declared a state of
Emergency. This detailed why Indira Gandhi decided to declare the Emergency as well as why population control was so important to her.
Malthus, Thomas Robert. Malthus: An Essay on the Principle of Population. Edited by Anthony
Flew. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1979 reprint. This was a book that was written by Thomas Malthus, which was extremely important in understanding the Emergency. This gave me insight into Malthusian ideologies, such as where it originated, why it was formed, and how it continued into the late 1900s as seen in the Emergency.
Ministry of Health & Family Planning. Family Planning Quarterly. New Delhi, India: Government of India Press, 1975. This book was about the spread of information and marketing during the Emergency. This helped me see the ways in which the Indian government was promoting sterilization and incentivizing vasectomies to men.
Mukherjee, Bishwa Nath. Report on the Haryana Family Planning and Fertility Survey: A
Sample Survey of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice. New Delhi, India: Population Council of India, 1973. This gave me insight into the approach that the states took, specifically in terms of compulsory legislation. Since the Indian government did not pass compulsory legislation, they told the states to do so. This helped me understand the ways in which sterilization was enforced at the state level.
The Rockefeller Foundation. Third Bellagio Conference on Population. N.p., 1974.
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This book was crucial to understanding the Rockefeller Foundation’s goals. This book discussed the Rockefeller’s ideas about eugenics, since this organization talked about how there was a rising tide of non-white people. They talked about how they needed to target Latin America, Africa, and specifically Asia. While Indira Gandhi was trying to target the lower casts in India, the Rockefeller Foundation was trying to target all of the Indian population.
Simons, Lewis M. "Compulsory Sterilization Provokes Fear, Contempt." Washington Post, July
4, 1977. Nexis Uni Academic. This source highlighted how people reacted to the state of Emergency and forced
sterilization. This gave insight into how the human rights barriers were broken, since Indian civilians went into a state of panic after the government started rounding people up for vasectomies.
Singh, Karan, Kondajji Basappa, and C. S. Ramachandran. National Institute of Family
Planning: Director's Reports. Vols. 1-5. N.p.: National Institute of Family Planning, 1970-1976. This book talked about how India addressed family planning, specifically through sterilization. This helped me understand the Indian government’s goals and missions throughout India, especially in Indian villages.
Smith, Brian H. More than Altruism: The Politics of Private Foreign Aid. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1990. This book showed me how the philanthropic organizations interacted with foreign governments. This gave insight on how foreign governments were able to affect philanthropic organizations, but also how these private organizations affected foreign governments. This was crucial in understanding the relationship between the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and the Indian government, as well as how they were able to collaborate so closely on a common project.
Tarlo, Emma. Unsettling Memories: Narratives of the Emergency in Delhi. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 2003. This book was a very good source since it was a compilation of testimonies of those who went through the Emergency. This helped me understand what people in India went through during this time and what life in India during the Emergency was like.
United Nations. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. https://www.un.org/en/universal-
declaration-human-rights/. Accessed February 2, 2020. This source is part of an agreement that listed all of the human rights, which were basic
inalienable rights that were guaranteed for all people, regardless of race, gender, and
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socioeconomic status. This really highlighted the fact that even the simplest of rights were being breached in India.
United Nations. Population Division. Department of Economic and Social Affairs. World
Population Plan of Action. August 1974. https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/generalassembly/docs/globalcompact/E_CONF.60_19_Plan.pdf. Accessed February 2, 2020.
This highlighted the global plan on population, and that the Ford and Rockefeller
Foundations were not merely an anomaly. This helped me realize that this was part of a global effort to control the world’s population, and that Ford and Rockefeller’s ideas were in line with many others.
United Nations. Charter of the United Nations.https://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/un-
charter-full-text/. Accessed January 2, 2020. This helped me understand some of the international human rights that were agreed upon,
since all charter members had to conform to the set of laws protecting some basic human rights. This gave insight into which laws were being breached during this period of mass sterilization and eugenics.
United States Congress. Human Rights in India: Hearings before the Subcommittee on
International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, Ninety-Fourth Congress, Second Session. June 23-September 23, 1976. Washington: U.S. Government Print Office, 1976. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pur1.32754074689708&view=1up&seq=51.Accessed January 1, 2020.
This source outlined all of the human rights barriers that were being broken during the
Emergency. This helped me form my argument and gave me some crucial evidence that supported the theme.
United States Government. National Security Council. National Security Study Memorandum
NSSM ÷200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (The Kissinger Report). December 10, 1974. https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pcaab500.pdf.
This was the Kissinger Report which summarized what the American people during the
Cold War thought of population control in India. Many people thought that a poor overpopulated India would be much more susceptible to Communist takeover, and thus the population would need to be controlled to preserve democracy in the world.
United States Government. "Summary Record of Conversation between President Johnson and
Prime Minister Gandhi, March 20, 1966."Office of the Historian: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968. Volume XXV: South Asia.
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https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v25/d307. Accessed January 10, 2020.
This was a record of a particular conversation between US President Lyndon B. Johnson
and Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, which highlighted that President Johnson would hold food aid if India didn’t control their population. This demonstrated the international pressure that Indira Gandhi faced which led her to call the state of Emergency.
Wallace, James N. "The Price India Pays for Indira Gandhi's 'Reforms.'" U.S. News and World
Report, January 24, 1977. Nexis Uni Academic. This newspaper highlighted India’s response to the Emergency, and how Indians become
fearful whenever the government mentions family planning. This helped me understand the long-lasting affects that the forced sterilization caused on the people.
Secondary Sources Collins, Patrick. "Population Growth the Scape Goat? Rethinking the Neo-Malthusian Debate."
Energy and Environment 13:3 (2002), 401-422. Via Jstor.
This article informed me of the context in which Ford, Rockefeller, and Gandhi were acting. The baby boom after World War II led to a revival of Malthusian ideology, which helped fuel the situation discussed in this paper.
Green, Hannah, "The legacy of India’s quest to sterilise millions of men," October 6, 2018.
https://qz.com/india/1414774/the-legacy-of-indias-quest-to-sterilise-millions-of-men/. Accessed November 2, 2019.
This source talked about the ramifications of the Emergency on India. This campaign to force men, particularly in the lower castes, to undergo vasectomies led to many people fearing the India government’s attempts to control the population.
Gwatkin, David R. "Political Will and Family Planning: The Implications of India's Emergency
Experience." Population and Development Review 5: 1 (Mar., 1979), 29-59.
This article provided a statistical overview on the family planning program during the Emergency period.
Hodges, Sarah. "Governmentality, Population and Reproductive Family in Modern India." Economic and Political Weekly 39:11 (Mar. 13-19, 2004), 1157-1163.
This source discussed the various ways that the Indian government controlled the Indian population. It also talked about the reasons for calling the state of Emergency. This helped me understand how this campaign to sterilize millions of men fit into the family planning ideology.
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Kevles, Daniel. "Eugenics and Human Rights." BMJ 319:7201 (1999): 435-438. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1127045/.
This article provided a broad overview of the history of the Eugenics movement, form its origins to the present day, and how it intersected with the movement for international human rights.
McGovern, Celeste. "USAID Funding of Sterilization Camps in India," in Population Research
Institute, January 13, 2015. https://www.pop.org/usaid-funding-of-sterilization-camps-in-india-part-1/. Accessed February 29, 2020.
This source highlighted the influence of the American government in the Emergency in
India. This gave insight into international pressure that India faced in terms of controlling their population.
Page, Benjamin B., and David A. Valone, eds. Philanthropic Foundations and the Globalization
of Scientific Medicine and Public Health. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2007. This book gave me an idea on how philanthropic organizations handled policies around the world. This gave me an idea about how the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations were able to influence the world through philanthropic missions. This helped me understand how the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations cloaked their goals in the name of philanthropy.
Parmar, Inderjeet. Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie and Rockefeller
Foundations in the Rise of American Power. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.
This source talked about how private philanthropic organizations became extremely influential during this time period and how these organizations, specifically the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, were able to control many aspects of American politics. This led to the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations being on the forefront in India. These organizations were so powerful that in India, they didn’t just represent their respective groups, rather they seemed like ambassadors from America.
Prakash, Gyan. Emergency Chronicles: Indira Gandhi and Democracy's Turning Point.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019. This book gave me a really good idea about all of the issues that the Indian government under Indira Gandhi faced during the Emergency. This not only discussed family planning, but it also addressed all of the policies instituted during this period. This helped me understand the general state of India during the time period.
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Schlesinger, Lee I. "The Emergency in an Indian Village." Asian Survey 17:7 (July 1977), 627-647.
This article was an anthological study of a village in western India during the Emergency period. The author lived in the village, and his testimony helped me understand the impact Emergency had at the village level.
Singh, Tripurduman. “When Nehru Put the Constitution in Danger,” in Times of India. January 26, 2020. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/voices/when-nehru-put-the-constitution-in-danger/. Accessed April 20, 2020.
This gave me insight into the internal political context that Emergency was a part of. The kind of authoritarianism practiced by Gandhi was part of a political tradition going back to Independence.
Vicziany, Marika. "Coercion in a Soft State: The Family-Planning Program of India, Part I: The
Myth of Voluntarism." Pacific Affairs 55:3 (Autumn, 1982), 373-402. JSTOR.
This article emphasized the continuity between the pre-Enmergency period and the Emergency period with respect to family planning policy. It helped me understand that population control was not just confined to the mid-1970’s, but had much earlier roots.
-----. "Coercion in a Soft State: The Family-Planning Program of India, Part 2: The Sources of
Coercion." Pacific Affairs 55:4 (Winter, 1982-1983), 557-592. JSTOR.
This article helped me understand how coercion can take non-violent forms, and how cash incentives to undergo sterilization were actually quite coercive when offered to the poor.
William, Rebecca Jane. "Storming the Citadels of Poverty: Family Planning under the
Emergency in India, 1975-1977." The Journal of Asian Studies 73:2 (May 2014), 471-492.
This source very important in understanding why Indira Gandhi targeted the groups that she did and why the government advertised sterilization the way that they did. This made me realize how the government was purposefully giving incentives to draw in the poorer communities in India and focusing on the Indian villages. This clarified the fact that the Indian government was not just trying to control the Indian population, they were trying to control the population of poor Indians. This demonstrated that human rights barriers were being broken.
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APPENDIX A
Men line up for vasectomies at the first mass sterilization camp in Kerala (1970).
(from Tarlo, Unsettling Memories)
Men waiting for vasectomies at Dujana Camp, New Delhi.
(from https://homegrown.co.in/article/29715/in-rare-photographs-a-visual-journey-through-india-during-the-national-emergency)
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APPENDIX B
Sterilization propaganda poster from the Emergency period. (from Tarlo, Unsettling Memories)
An advertisement for sterilization incentives during the early months of the
Emergency (from Tarlo, Unsettling Memories)
Political Cartoon from the Emergency Period (from Ford Foundation Records, Population Program, Office Files
of Tim Rice, Box 3)
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APPENDIX C
Chart Displaying Sterilization Targets and Achievements, State by State
(from Government of India, Shah Commission of Inquiry, 207)
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APPENDIX D
Ford Foundation chart depicting demographic barriers to economic advancement.
The chart was prepared for the Indian government, and
circulated amongst policymakers.
(from Ensminger, Douglas Ensminger Papers, Box 1, File 25a)
Correspondence between the Rockefeller Foundation and the
American Eugenics Society was commonplace in the
records on the Indian family planning project; Frederick
Osborn was employed by the Foundation in India.
(from Rockefeller Foundation, Population Council Records: General File. Series 1, RG1 (FA210). Box 1,
Folder 7)
