Even as India has emerged as a global flashpoint for housing the world’s largest number of AIDS infected people and a shocking report of the Union government indicates that 53 percent of children are subjected to sexual abuse, several states have banned sex education even in senior school. Summiya Yasmeen reports Sexual hypocrisy is la vice de l’ Inde. In the society which gifted the world the Kamasutra, the erotic sculptures of Khajuraho, the sexy Bollywood song-n-dance numbers featuring close-ups of gyrating hips, bosoms and thighs beamed 24×7 over 100 television channels usually watched en famille, educating children about preventive, safe and/or responsible sex is taboo. According to elected representatives of the people countrywide, parents, teachers and other adults would prefer sex education to be kept out of school classrooms. Therefore in March, the reputedly ‘progressive’ states of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh banned sex education in all schools within state boundaries. Never mind that India is emerging as a global flashpoint for housing the world’s largest number of AIDS infected people (5.7 million), and a shocking report of the Union ministry of women and child development released on April 9 indicates that 53 percent of India’s children are subjected to sexual abuse. The conclusions of the report came as a shock to Renuka Chowdhury, Union minister for women and child development. “Child abuse is shrouded in secrecy and there is a conspiracy of silence around the entire subject. The ministry is working on a new law for protection of children’s rights by clearly specifying and stiffening punishments,” she said, while releasing the report. But quite obviously the option of providing children sex education so they can protect themselves didn’t occur to her. Ditto state level politicians (under the Constitution of India education is a concurrent subject) who control and administer state government schools. “At any cost we won’t allow sex education in state-run schools,” thundered Basavaraj Horatti, primary education minister in the JD(S)-BJP coalition government which rules Karnataka (pop. 57 million), on March 18. Likewise on March 30 Maharashtra (pop. 98 million) education minister Hassan Mushriff promised to “withdraw sex education textbooks from all schools in the state.” In Madhya Pradesh BJP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan went a step further: he instructed the state’s education department to replace sex education in schools with yoga classes and discourses on Indian traditions and values. Earlier even the education-friendly states of Kerala (literacy: 91 percent) and Gujarat (70 percent) issued similar injunctions to proscribe sex education in schools. Contrary to liberal belief, state-level politicians are in fact articulating public opinion. Massed behind them are strident spokespersons of Hindu fundamentalist political parties, Islamic organisations, teachers’ unions and women’s groups – the so-called moral brigade/guardians who were in the forefront of the agitation which forced closure of innocuous dance bars in Mumbai and Bangalore. The immediate provocation for these morality guardians was a reported circular of the Union ministry of human resource development enjoining all state governments to implement its Adolescent Education Programme (AEP) in classes IX and XI in…
