Never Forget June 25th: Institute remembers the 39th anniversary of 11 million sterilizations

WASHINGTON DC: Population Research Institute remembers when, thirty-nine years ago, the population controllers got their way in India. Under severe pressure from the United States and the World Bank, the-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered mass sterilizations.

The campaign began on June 25th, 1975, when the Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, suspended elections and civil liberties. She declared a State of Emergency, and began rounding up Dalits (untouchables) and Muslims by the millions.

By the time the emergency period ended in March 1977, over 11 million men and women had been forcibly sterilized in assembly-line fashion. The unsanitary conditions in which these operations were carried out left many crippled or dead. 

Steven Mosher, the president of PRI, a long-time human-rights activist, and a witness to forced sterilizations in Asia, will be available for interviews and comments. “What happened in India–and what continues to happen in China under the one-child policy—could happen in any developing world country tomorrow,” says Mosher. “USAID continues to press countries in Africa and elsewhere to reduce birth rates and increase ‘contraceptive prevalence’ rates.”

Population Research Institute will remember “the day when the population controllers got their way” with a briefing, a tweetfest, and a series of shareable graphics on social media.

Population Research Institute is a non-profit with a long history of documenting, exposing, and ending coercive population control programs.

Press contact: Anne Roback Morse: [email protected] (540) 660-2733

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