New Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi won praise after his first independence day speech in August for not shying away from awkward social issues. One of them was women's rights, prompted by national shame over a tide of rape cases, lack of secure and hygienic sanitation, and the widespread practice of aborting female foetuses. He deserves credit for such high-profile acknowledgment of important subjects that remain taboo to many politicians - a necessary first step towards addressing them.
But the nation has a long way to go. A reminder of just how far is the horror of a mass sterilisation programme in the central Indian city of Bilaspur that went wrong, leaving more than a dozen women dead from infection or poisoning by contaminated antibiotics.
Women are the victims of a chronically underfunded and poorly governed health system that fails to provide most with accessible and effective antenatal and neonatal care and a choice of safe contraception. India ranks near the bottom of developing nations for percentage of GDP spent on health care, and way under World Health Organisation guidelines for the ratio of hospital beds, doctors and nurses to its population.
Sterilisation is the only form of contraception most Indian women know - more than 4.5 million a year undergo it. A government-sponsored programme offering a common procedure, tubal ligation by keyhole surgery under local anaesthetic at 1,400 rupees (HK$176) a head, is attractive in the absence of a free choice.
The tragedy in Bilaspur involved a doctor carrying out the procedure on 80-odd women over six hours. He has been arrested, although blame has yet to be apportioned. The question is why India still sponsors this form of birth control when its fertility rate per woman has fallen from more than five 40 years ago to 2.4 now, close to the rate of 2.1 that keeps a population stable.
Economic development will go some way to addressing India's many chronic social problems. But, as other societies have found, the benefits of growth would be enhanced by greater equality of women in education, employment and in the family, and in control over their own fertility through access to decent health care and discretionary contraception. Now that Modi has put aside taboos it is time for debate and action on women's reproductive rights.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Time India acted on women's rights
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tK%2FMqWWcp51ksLC5zJ6lrWeZo8Cqs8etZKiomaO2sLqOmqmtoZOhsnB9lW1tbGppZLqwsMhmmaunm5p6ta3BqKZmr5%2Bisq%2B%2FjKugoKCkqHqqusOimGamn6x6oq%2FToqanZZ2qwLV5xaijpaen