By IANS,
New Delhi : Forced by their leaders to undergo vasectomy to prevent filial attachments, Maoist guerrillas who surrendered in recent years can hope to return to normal family life with the government offering sterilisation reversal surgeries.
The home ministry Friday sent out advisories to the nine Left-wing extremism affected states to facilitate vasectomy reversal procedures for surrendered rebels so that they can have children after marriage and lead a fuller normal life.
The ministry also asked Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal to address the issue of vasectomy, a procedure that can be reversed, within the ambit of their policy for surrender and rehabilitation of Maoists.
The advisory comes in the wake of two surrendered Communist Party of India-Maoist guerrillas undergoing vasectomy reversal surgery in Chhattisgarh.
“Forced sterilisation of the lower rung and tribal cadres of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army of the CPI-Maoist by the top leadership has been in practice for a number of years,” the advisory noted.
“The Andhra Pradesh leadership resorts to this practice to keep the tribal cadres perpetually battle-fit and also to foreclose the option of alternate family life away from the Maoist fold,” it added.
“In view of the above, there is a need to address this issue within the ambit of the existing surrender and rehabilitation policy for Maoist cadres. No rehabilitation is complete if the Maoist cadres cannot return to normal family life and have children,” it stressed.
The home ministry has now asked the states to ascertain the status of the surrendered and arrested rebels, and wherever necessary, facilitate their return to normal family life.
“This process will also reduce the temptation of the cadres to return back to the Maoist fold. Hence, the state governments should consider facilitating vasectomy reversal operations of willing Maoist cadres,” the advisory said.
About 300 to 400 Maoist guerrillas surrender to the state administration annually and about 100 others are arrested by the security forces.
Now, all those among the surrendered and arrested rebels who had undergone vasectomy would be made the offer for a reversal of the procedure.
In case vasectomy was done on them through crude procedures by quacks, the ministry has proposed that the state governments should consider facilitating the reversal surgery at a higher medical centre and the government should bear the costs.
“This is one of the strategies the government could use to wean away tribals and others from the Maoist fold, as the vasectomy procedure had led to some cadres surrendering in protest,” said an official, who did not want to be named.
Seven Maoist guerrillas surrendered in January in Kanker in Chhattisgarh over the issue, having developed serious differences of opinion with their leaders.