Fertility cross is not for women to carry

The chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu want women to have more children. In the past week, both N Chandrababu Naidu and MK Stalin expressed their concern over their state’s ageing demography and have publicly called for a reversal in this decline.

I have news for them: Women do not need to be lectured to by politicians, especially male politicians, on the number of children they ought to have. We are not walking wombs who reproduce (or not) to further national, or, in this case, state interest. It is simply not our cross to bear and is as repugnant as Right-wing parties asking Hindu women to have more kids because “Hindu khatrein mein hain.”