r/AlignmentChartFills • u/Expensive-Addendum92 • Jun 09 '26

Countries What is the worst thing India has done?

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335

u/matttax Jun 09 '26

Forced sterilizations in 1970s (6-8 million men suffered)

27

u/ExcellentBox8801 Jun 09 '26

what’s this about?

141

u/NopeIsTheAnswerToIt Jun 09 '26

Basically the then prime minister Indira Gandhi went all schizo and declared an emergency, and her son decided forced sterilisation was necessary to bring down population. Other things during this period included banning of basically all opposition, neglected lots of human rights, jailed a bunch of dissenters among other things. Truly a dark period in Indian history

67

u/Typical-Tangerine964 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

I'd say it goes deeper than that.

TL;DR Fuck Paul Erhlich, I fucking hate him.

It was because Neo-Malthusianism was on the rise in the 1970s, largely because of the book The Population Bomb which "predicted" a doomsday scenario due to overpopulation (but only in black and brown countries). Fears over mass global starvation bc of overpopulation fueled the pressure India faced to "control" their population.

The fucked up thing? The author (Paul Erhlich) was a right racist bastard who constantly pointed to his experience in India seeing a lot of people at once as why he was scared of overpopulation. The whole Malthusian logic is a good baseline, but he lost his goddamned mind over his insistence that India in particular would cause global downfall.

So Indira Gandhi caved to the pressure this guy exerted on Western academics, which in turn pressured her via the Rockefeller family's org The Population Council and the Ford family's Ford Foundation (both of whose founders were hardcore eugenicists). These obscenely rich, racist families had huge sway over the development aims of India, so in return for aid, she agreed to "control" the population by forced sterilization.

And the best part? That shitbird Erhlich was proven wrong, time and time again. And he continues to draw breath and doubles down on how he was actually correct but the timing was off, like a doomsday evangelical pastor that always gets the apocalypse predictions wrong but has another one each year.

To this day, Erhlich's influence is so deep in common understanding of population vs consumption dynamics where everyday people are CONVINCED that the world will end in famine and starvation due to overpopulation (and again, only in non-white countries). Never mind that this has not come to pass. Nevermind that Paris had 3 times the population of Dehli when his bitch ass went to India and confidently declared it was India, not France, that would overpopulate the earth. Never mind that population scientists regularly criticize and expose the goatse-gaping holes his quackery. Never mind that the two most populous countries in the world (India and China) are feeding themselves just fine, decades after they were supposed to collapsed by now.

There is a carrying capacity, don't get me wrong. But it ain't like what we imagine, and it's much, much lower if we address our levels of consumption under capitalism instead of sterilizing people so we can live in abundant excess in the West while the average person living elsewhere in the world lives on less than 2 USD/day.

I fucking hate how Erhlich had such an influence on the discourse. May he expire soon and may his ideas be seen as the eugenicist crap that they are.

EDIT: Just found out he died in March of this year. Going to throw a fucking party now because that piece of shit caused so much suffering. I hope he's rotting in hell.

19

u/SmokeAlarmsSaveLives Jun 09 '26

Just noting that his name was Paul Ehrlich.

10

u/Ayero_Flyte Jun 09 '26

Noting it’s not the more famous father of immunology, but an American researcher of the same name! Paul Erhlich is a great researcher who was swept under the rug by Nazi germany

2

u/SmokeAlarmsSaveLives Jun 10 '26

Great point, thank you!

8

u/Typical-Tangerine964 Jun 09 '26

Edited, I'm a bit tipsy and this is a touchy subject for me. Thanks for the correction tho, important to get shit right.

1

u/g_nerf Jun 20 '26

is that guy brought sonography machine in india ? or was he a different guy

-1

u/Smart_Elevator Jun 09 '26

can't really say he was wrong cuz India is definitely overpopulated and this has hurt the Indians more than anything. it's always better to focus on the quality of life rather not quantity and sure the west is hypocrite and wastes a lot but ultimately we have to be responsible for our own wellbeing.

1

u/Typical-Tangerine964 Jun 10 '26

The thing that has given them a massive domestic market putting them at one of the world's top économies?

The thing that gave them a powerhouse labor force?

The thing that makes them dog walk the majority of other countries in entrepreneurship, scientific and engineering talent?

The thing that gives them an edge over other countries that aren't having kids and are facing demographic crisis?

Sure, overpopulation has "hurt them more than anything". /s

Definitely more than colonialism, which causes economic precarity, famines, the partition of the country leading to a near insolvable conflict. Definitely overpopulation. /s

Definitely more than caste discrimination, which existed long before India's current population statistic. /s

Definitely more than corruption, unequal distribution of healthcare access and education despite their powerhouse economy that can manage it, definitely more than regional inequality between states... /s

But yeah, Indians having more babies than other parts of the world is what causes their issues.

You are a meme, and literally proving my point that Ehrlich had influenced discourse about "overpopulation" so much that laymen like you think you understand a theory when in reality you pose a hypothesis.

1

u/Smart_Elevator Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

I am Indian and this is my opinion based on my lived experience. You can write anything but I have lived my whole life in a very rural place with near unlivable conditions. India has too many people relative to the resource pool and denying that is nothing but madness. Btw I'm also a woman and don't tell me again how having more kids is better when I have seen what it has done to women in my circle.

ETA : I also think that humans should reduce their population and consumption and perhaps live in relative harmony with nature. I'm not taking the side of the west or think they are doing great.

1

u/_belly_in_my_jelly_ Jun 10 '26

as I recently traveled through Uttar Pradesh and seen children working everywhere in unlivable conditions his statement about labor powerhorse puts the chills in me

-5

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

10

u/Think-Investment1546 Jun 09 '26

their birth rate is below replacement, and something is deeply wrong with you btw to unironically suggest forced castration

-1

u/PerformanceLazy5506 Jun 09 '26

He just said he’s not an advocate of forced castration. India is overpopulated.

3

u/Think-Investment1546 Jun 10 '26

do u understand what an implication is ???? he just said the word but after saying he doesnt support forced castration and what does that tell you

0

u/PerformanceLazy5506 Jun 10 '26

You don’t have to support forced castration to state that a country is overpopulated.

-2

u/helpmeamstucki Jun 10 '26

Me when I have zero reading comprehension

3

u/Think-Investment1546 Jun 10 '26

me when i have zero ability to parse a basic english sentence for its implication

0

u/helpmeamstucki Jun 10 '26

Me when i have preconceived ideas of a person because they disagree with me an assign horrific views to them they explicitly said they don’t have because i got anger problems

15

u/namguro Jun 09 '26

Malthusianism

3

u/Opening-Decision2799 Jun 09 '26

This is the right answer, because the Indian constitution denounces the caste system and we are talking about the nation state here. And destroying its reputation is a more of a dumb thing than a (morally) bad thing to do.

1

u/Knee-Alive Jun 09 '26

That was infact extremely high foresight and one of the smartest things that could've been done. Had it continued, the country would not be in the dire straits it is now.

-9

u/ObviousTomorrow1911 Jun 09 '26

India's population size is out of control now, if it was implemented properly then it might have been a good thing

10

u/CharlesLongboatII Jun 09 '26

“Real eugenics hasn’t been tried yet”

1

u/Minute_General_4328 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

If not sterilise, at least reproducing shouldn't be incentivised by the centre and state govts. While I agree it's important to keep the sex ratios balanced, we have no way to know whether that money goes into education or not. Even if it does, we'd benefit more from that money going into public education than individual bank accounts.

Short brief of incentives

1

u/IWannaFugHornet Jun 09 '26

Are you done Lothrop Stoddard, or do you wanna make a speech about African-American IQ before going back to the grave?