Naxal Love’s Price: Forced Vasectomies for Maoist Men in Chhattisgarh

 Raipur: Wedlock for the Naxal love birds in the Leftwing extremism-hit Bastar in Chhattisgarh comes with a price with the male partners being forced to undergo vasectomy in the rebel medical camps to deny their respective Maoist spouses to bear children.

As many as 26 such Maoist couples in Bastar have so far surrendered with the hope of leading a healthy marital and social life when they were assured by the police to make the male partners regain reproduction capability with reverse vasectomy surgeries in hospital.

“Twenty six male Maoists who were forced to undergo vasectomy in the Naxal medical camps before marrying their female colleagues, they were in love, have undergone reverse vasectomy surgeries in hospitals after their surrender.

The surgeries were found to be successful in 12 of them”, Bastar range inspector general of police P Sunderraj disclosed to this newspaper on Saturday.

The Maoist leaders force the young male Naxals to undergo vasectomy if they wish to marry their female colleagues since they consider the pregnant women cadres and mothers of children are a liability for them during the movement in the jungle particularly during the encounters with security forces, the police officer said.

Those surrendered Naxals who have undergone reverse vasectomy surgery hailed from the districts of Bijapur (four), Narayanpur (three), Kanker (seven), Dantewada (three) and Sukma (nine) in Bastar, the police data revealed.

Unfortunately, the reverse vasectomy surgery has failed in case of 14 others, the official data said.

“We are in the process of finalising a plan for social rehabilitation of these 14 couples by arranging adoption of children, orphaned by Naxal violence, for them”, Mr Sunderraj said.

The surrendered Maoists who became fathers after their successful reverse vasectomy surgeries are Subhash Mandavi, Sonu Korsa, Pandu alias Jagat Lekam, Shyamlal Korram, Laxin Poyam, Milap alias Nilap Usendi, Sonu alias Sona Sai Korram, Chamru alias Ram Singh Salam, Dinesh Kadti and Jitu Sablam.

The first case of such an ‘inhuman practice’ by Naxals came to light in late 2010, triggering a national outrage then.

“The practice is still prevalent in Maoism. We have received a few fresh cases of male young Naxals, belonging to battalion one of CPI (Maoist), being forced to undergo vasectomy surgeries in Naxal medical camps before marrying their female colleagues”, Mr Sunderraj said.

The vasectomy surgeries have been performed by ‘Naxal doctors’, who barely passed class eight, in Maoist medical camps, according to Dr G K Pandey, head of the department of defence studies in the Government PG College of Science in Raipur.

“I have met such a Naxal doctor who got training to perform such surgeries from some doctors visiting Naxal camps often”, Dr Pandey who has done PhD on Leftwing insurgency in Bastar told this newspaper.