Boosting birth control among Assam Muslims

Any talk of birth control had once been taboo for Muslims, particularly the uneducated Muslims living in remote areas of Assam. This has changed, thanks largely to Ilias Ali, a professor of surgery at the Gawahati Medical College & Hospital, who had launched a kind of 'jihad' (holy war) against the misconceptions about birth control and has thus far carried out a staggering 48,000 vasectomies on Muslim males.

Now, Muslim males with two or more children are voluntarily coming out in large numbers to get sterilized and help control the population. "Muslims, particularly the uneducated ones, are opposed to birth control. It is not only in Assam but in many other parts of India as well. They believe children are divine blessings and all births take place as per His wish," Ali, who conducted his first No Scalpel Vasectomy (NSV), also known as 'keyhole vasectomy' in Assam in 2008, told this correspondent.

"NSV is one of the most popular techniques to conduct vasectomy through a single puncture in the scrotum and which requires no suturing or stitches. It causes less pain and fewer post-operative complications. Ali went to China for being trained in NSV by Li Shunqiang, who had invented the procedure in the mid-1970s. However, it was introduced in India only in the mid-1990s. "I have realized that there is ignorance among the people, particularly among the uneducated Muslims over this.

The Holy Quran has been misinterpreted by some and the people have taken it to be true due to their being illiterate," he said while explaining that, in fact, Islam is perhaps the only religion which talks of family limitation methods. One of Assam's best-known surgeons, Ali said that he also often refers to Chapter 46, Verse 15 of the Quran which means that there should be a gap of 30 months between a child's birth and his or her weaning.

"Since lactation is understood to act as a natural contraceptive for a mother, this implies that there should be a gap of two-and-a-half years between two children," he said. "It is incumbent upon fellow Muslims to arrest the spiraling population and preserve the environment. The population growth rate among the Muslims, particularly among the non-indigenous Muslims living in the riverine sandbars, is comparatively higher than other communities in Assam. The shrinking land availability due to the population growth is a matter of concern," he said, adding that his efforts have shown results over the years.

Educationist and associate professor of North Eastern Hill University Dwijen Sarma termed Ali's efforts as path-breaking. "I had the opportunity of meeting Dr. Ilias Ali during a programme and he explained how he works among the rural uneducated Muslims encouraging them for birth control," Sarma pointed out. "It was a herculean task to convince Muslims in remote areas to go for birth control. However, Dr. Ali has succeeded in his mission and I am sure he would achieve his target of bringing down the TFR to 2.1 percent," Sarma added.

By Aditya Sarma