‘They want to stay single, don’t want to give birth even after marriage’: Karnataka minister’s shocker on ‘modern Indian women’

KEY STORY

• In shocking remarks, Karnataka Health Minister K Sudhakar on Sunday said that a lot of modern women in India want to stay single and are also not willing to give birth even after marriage and desire children by surrogacy.

• “Today, I am sorry to say this, a lot of modern women in India want to stay single. Even if they get married, they don’t want to give birth. They want surrogacy. So there is a paradigm shift in our thinking, which is not good,” he said.

• Sudhakar made the statement during the World Mental Health Day at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurological Sciences (NIMHANS) in Bengaluru.

• He also deplored the “western influence” on Indian society and said people are unwilling to let their parents be with them.

• “Unfortunately, today we are going in a western way. We don’t want our parents to live with us, forget about grandparents being with us,” the minister said.

#WATCH | …Today we don't want our parents to live with us. A lot of modern women in India want to stay single. Even if they get married, don't want to give birth. Paradigm shift in our thinking,it's not good: Karnataka Health Min on World Mental Health Day,at NIMHANS, Bengaluru pic.twitter.com/LkX7Ab7Sks

— ANI (@ANI) October 10, 2021

Sudhakar’s comment drew sharp reactions from several people on social media who slammed him for such “moral judgement”.

“Now, what is the problem if women stay single?! Why such moral judgement of good/bad? Today women have the fin independence to stay alone. It wasn’t a choice many women had 1-2 gens back. Please, let them be!” a woman wrote on Twitter.

“Yes Finally Women have started to think beyond Marriage & Motherhood.Period,” another user tweeted.

The minister also spoke about mental health issues in India and said every seventh Indian has some kind of mental issue, which could be mild, moderate and severe.

“Stress management is an art. This art we need not learn as Indians. We need to preach to the world how to handle stress, because yoga, meditation and Pranayama are the wonderful tools that our ancestors had taught the world thousands of years back,” he said, PTI reported.