A day after drawing criticism for his remarks that many modern Indian women wanted to stay single and were not willing to bear children even after marriage, Health Minister K. Sudhakar has clarified that he did not mean to single out women. He claimed that he was only stressing the positive role played by family in handling mental stress.
The Minister, who had made the remarks at the World Mental Health Day programme organised by NIMHANS in the city on Sunday, has now claimed that through his address he intended to send across the message on how the Indian family value system can address mental health issues.
“It is unfortunate that a small part of my nineteen-and-a-half-minute speech has been taken out of context, thereby ignoring the larger point I was trying to make,” he said in a statement on Monday.
The Minister asserted that it was widely established through research and studies that in a situation where mental health resource is a scarcity, families form a valuable support system. “Indian society is collectivistic and promotes social cohesion and interdependence. The traditional Indian joint family, which follows the same principles of collectivism, has proved itself to be an excellent resource for the care of the mentally ill,” he said.
Quoting a paper in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry , Dr. Sudhakar said, “Indian and Asian families are, therefore, far more involved in caring for their members. Indian families are more intimate with the patient and are capable of taking greater therapeutic participation than [those] in the West.”
“My statement about the younger generation shying away from marriage and reproduction is also based on a survey. The findings of YouGov-Mint-CPR Millennial Survey show that among millennials, 19% are not interested in either children or marriage. Another 8% want children but are not interested in marriage. Among post-millennials (or Gen Z adults), 23% are not interested in either children or marriage. As in the case of millennials, 8% want children but are not interested in marriage. There are very little gender-wise differences in these trends. It is applicable to both boys and girls,” he said.
Congress reaction
Earlier in the day, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president D.K. Shivakumar ridiculed the minister for his comments by tweeting, “They make big promises about women’s empowerment, while this is what the actual mindset is. Regressive, bashing women for their choices. All masks eventually come off.”
Congress MLA Anjali Nimbalkar too criticised the Minister by saying, “These men need counselling on World Mental Health Day. Let her [the woman] live with her choices. No one can decide for her but herself...”
Pointing out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi too was single, she wondered why the BJP Minister was not commenting about it. “Any comments on their leader Narendra Modi? Paradigm shift of living single even after getting married,” she remarked in a tweet.
