Health

Watch TV instead of having sex

by generaldecay | July 16, 2009 at 01:36 pm

863 views | 13 Recommendations | 6 comments

To mark World Population Day last Saturday, India’s health and family welfare minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, declared that every rural home in India should have a television. But this was no campaign for the masses’ right to infotainment. Rather, Azad sees the TV as a magic bullet to fix the country’s ‘population crisis’ - that is, TV shows might prove to be a distraction for those impoverished baby-making machines in rural India. If they could just watch TV instead of having sex, there would be fewer poor, rural babies born. Population crisis solved.

I thought this was a joke when I read it first, but apparently not. The authorities in India want people, particularly 'poor people', to own TVs in order that they have less sex and fewer babies. This is so offensive on many levels. Not only does this man assume that the impoverished of India can afford televisions and all that goes with them, but also that they are some sort of sex-crazed, debased creatures who need to be controlled and denied a sex life.

Indeed, as the piece states:

‘In olden days people had no other entertainment but sex, which is why they produced so many children. Today, TV is the biggest source of entertainment. Hence, it is important that there is electricity in every village so that people watch TV till late in the night. By the time the serials are over, they’ll be too tired to have sex and will fall asleep. Then they won’t get a chance to reproduce. When there is no electricity, there is nothing else to do but produce babies.’ Perhaps this describes a typical night in the Azad household, but the idea that rural Indians have nothing but intercourse on their minds, and that they need to have their sex drive tamed by television shows, is pure fantasy. Azad sees poor people as irrational, idle creatures who need to be controlled. The fact that he wants to control them through benevolent-sounding means (having access to electricity and TV are no bad things in themselves) doesn’t make his proposal any less pernicious.

Once again, the privileged dictate what the unprivileged can and cannot do with their own bodies and minds.

The piece goes on to explain many more assumptions about 'poor people' in India and what this man thinks they want and need. Perhaps he would be better off providing contraception and adequate healthcare for these people instead of trying to impose restrictions on their behaviour.

The arrogance and ignorance of some people, particularly the powerful, is too often shocking.

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sara star

at 15:49 on July 16th, 2009

Don't most of the shows have a sexual nature to it? Hot babes, muscle men, glamour?

generaldecay

at 12:58 on July 18th, 2009

Sara, yes, you're right. Thanks for the recommendation and comment.

Roy C

at 19:16 on July 16th, 2009

Well, the evidence is that when there were major power failures in New York, and there was no TV that evening, nine months later there was a major increase in births.

I say the minister is right.

generaldecay

at 12:59 on July 18th, 2009

Regardless of what the evidence says, no one has the right to tell grown adults when they should or should not have sex and, effectively, tell women when and when not to procreate.

t k kidwai

at 10:43 on August 1st, 2009

The minister remarks didn't come to us as surprise.I guess that day he got out of bed on wrong side.Population growth has nothing to do with alternate source of entertainment,which in the opinion of minister concerned is TV.

He is not aware that most of the villages in India are electricity starved.Power supply is restricted to 6 to 8 hours a day with changing schedule every week.His suggestion doesn't make a sense.We don't mind for one simple reason:we are used to hearing non-sense from our semi-literate ministers.

generaldecay

at 11:00 on August 1st, 2009

t k kidwai, kudos for your patience and understanding of this man - I have none of either. As a minister, I expect him to know the reality of the situation the people he is supposed to represent. I don't find it acceptable at all that this man does not. That said, I can completely understand your cynicism regarding ministers. They are the same the world over, alas.

Thank you for your comment.