The novel makes reference to the family-planning campaigns occurring in India during the 1970s. Daisy feels passionately about this movement and dedicates her life to providing people with birth control and sex education. These campaigns began in 1952 as part of the country’s concerted effort to curb the massive population growth that was overtaking villages and cities. A deeper dive into this history provides important context to the story as a whole.
In 1952, India developed a government-sponsored family planning program, known as the National Family Planning Program. The initiative focused on lowering fertility rates and generally limiting population growth. Both objectives were informed by a desire to stimulate economic growth. The program was concerned with five main priorities: making sure that communities felt able to accept assistance, that parents had a sense of the number of children they wanted and could provide for, that citizens trusted politicians and media outlets, that services were easily accessible, and that these services were integrated into general health services, particular for mothers and children.
The program was implemented over the course of several five-year plans that occurred between 1952 and 1979. While these programs initially endorsed the rhythm method as the best means of birth control, they eventually shifted over to sterilization and IUDs. In the early 1970s, then-Prime Minister India Gandhi attempted to enact a forced sterilization program, but it had little success. Men with two or more children were required to be sterilized. However, subsequent assessments of these programs took note of the fact that many unmarried young men, supposed political dissidents, and members of the lower classes were sterilized. The program is now viewed critically in the history of public health, as it contributed to an aversion to family planning that limited the government’s efforts for years subsequently. The program eventually began to focus more on women’s family planning and birth control, as sterilizing men proved to be ineffective and unpopular. The complicated legacy of these efforts shows how difficult the implementation of the programs was and how its harsh measures actually contributed to a rift in public opinion and government policy.
