‘We must stop surrogacy exploitation, let justice prevail’

- by India Writes Network | India Writes Network

The rent-a-womb practice has evolved into a thriving industry in India, which is estimated to be over $2 billion. More than 250,000 children are now born in India through surrogates, making the country a preferred destination for childless couples looking for surrogate mothers.Nearly half of these babies, born to surrogate mothers, are reported to be contracted by western couples. This is the backdrop against which author-journalist Kishwar Desai has penned Origins of Love, a social thriller that dives deep into the theme of surrogacy and complex moral questions that flow from it.

In this conversation with Manish Chand, Editor-in-Chief, India Writes (www.indiawrites.org), Desai speaks about the creative imperatives that goaded her to write a novel about surrogacy, and kindred issues like the commodification of female body and the unrelenting exploitation of women in this unabashed consumerist age. Animated by a burning sense of justice, the author also speaks about her next novel that takes a searching look at rape, an issue that has acquired an added resonance in India in the wake of an unprecedented national outrage following the rape of a young physiotherapist in the Indian capital over two months ago.

A prolific writer who effortlessly straddles the realms of fiction and non-fiction, Desai, the winner of the Costa First Novel Award for her debut novel Witness the Night, confesses that writing has become second nature and an inner need for her. “Writing has now become almost a compulsive act. I feel that I am not working if I am not writing,” says the author.

(Excerpts from the interview):

Q) Unregulated baby factories are mushrooming all over India and the burgeoning rent-a-womb industry is posing fresh moral dilemmas. What made you write a novel revolving around surrogacy?

A) Surrogacy in India is a multi-million dollar business and it is being conducted without any rules or regulations. There are a lot of people making a lot of money out of it. There are the doctors who are making money; and then there are lawyers who are making a lot of money because there are so many legal issues involved. But the women come from an extremely poor background and they are doing it not only because they need the money but also because they are being pressurized to do so. The actual law which is supposed to govern this- the Assisted Reproductive Technology Act — has not been even presented in the parliament. In the country like ours, I think we need to be really careful because the women are exploited to such a large extent.We must do everything to prevent it and to ensure that it does not go to another level of exploitation. That’s why I decided to write this book and discuss the whole issue of the commodification of the woman, the use of woman’s body and what is happening to the women of this country. Of course, all of these issues are related.

My first book dealt with infanticide, the murder of female children. In the second book, I wanted to stick with the subject of gender, with a little more foreword. But this was done entirely through fiction and each of these books is like a crime novel.

Q) Tell us more about the plot of your novel… and how you use the plot to entwine narrative and commentary in your new book…

A) The plot is very important for me because when I write for an international audience, it is not possible for the reader to be familiar with some of the issues related to female infanticide. They would be unfamiliar with it. So I have to sometimes digress a bit, where my narrator has to give a little bit more information, which is  bit of non- fiction. Some real statistics are, therefore, woven into the plot. You are right in saying that because this is a new territory and I am trying a mix of two things and give some sort of information while the plot is going forward.

Q) In what way your new novel Origins of Love is different from what you had written earlier?

A) In my latest book, I have gone a step ahead because now I am trying to do it for today’s generation and today’s readers. I want young girls to read my books. So I am finding an audience in them. I want to write these books in an accessible style. Since we are moving towards a more digitized world and everything is more digitized, heavy loaded descriptions don’t work. There is a need for a more sharper and precise context; a more linear narrative. So it is quite an exciting process for me, which opens up possibilities of another way of writing.

Q) Talking of gender issues, there is also a class angle there. For example, the kind of vigilantism or activism one saw in the Jessica Lal case and more recently, the massive outrage in response to Nirbhaya’s rape – these were driven by relatively well-off women and college students. Do you explore this class angle in your novels focused on gender issues?

Also, you started off as a journalist. What made you venture into the realm of fiction?

A) In the case of my first book (Witness the Night), people were drawn into the debate because it was translated into Hindi and it was increasingly accessible. The book got a lot of coverage and automatically people started questioning about it; people make connections between what is in the newspapers and then they read a book review, which triggers a more insightful understanding. All of it comes together. Khushwant Singh was also very happy about it as it dealt with this issue and that, too, in a fictional form. The narrative makes it engraved in the audience’s mind and that is what makes it special.

Q) What is your next book about and what does it deal with?

A) It is called the Sea of Innocence and I started researching for it two years back. In the past six months, I have done most of the writing, and now it is due in a month. It deals with the issue of rape. I started writing it much before the Nirbhaya incident (when a young physiotherapist was brutally raped, triggering a massive national outrage).

Q) When you write a rape story, what is it that you are actually trying to do? How is it any different from so many novels that explore the psychic traumas rape?

A) It is different in the sense that it deals with the issue of delivery of justice. Issues like how to get women into the mainstream, getting them equality and giving them a sense that they belong as equally in society as men do. I look at the entire gamut and sequence of events – from the time when the woman victim has to deal with the police, file an F.I.R., when the police steps into it and what is the image of the woman who has been raped… In the end, it’s all about the delivery of justice. In most cases, we see people going scot-free, and they are out on bail without any punishment. This novel is based on a real life story.

Q) It looks like this deep-down sense of justice is your prime provocation to write. You have a very strong ethical code embedded in your writings. Every author has two or three themes that keep on haunting them throughout their life and they go back to it so often. In your case, what are those master themes?

A) Well, I don’t think I have discovered a master theme in my writing. My first book was about cinema, a very secular story. It was about Nargis and Sunil Dutt. It had a very strong woman protagonist, even the man was a very different man. He was a caring and a warm individual. That was a completely different story. This one has developed quite accidently and it develops itself into a series. My next book is also going to be about gender and I am also working on another book on the Indian cinema.Another one I am working on is a big fat romantic novel,which has got nothing to do with any of this. It will be an international novel. One should be able to explore life without being slotted into anything.

Q) What does the act of writing do to you as a person? Do you feel ennobled, cleansed, entertained, and amused?

A) Writing has now become almost a compulsive act. I feel that I am not working if I am not writing. I feel I should be at home and I should be writing a book and shouldn’t be sitting here and just talking. Like, I shouldn’t be talking about writing, I should be actually writing. It has now become a part of my nature now. And I wanted to write all these books. There is also a sense of impatience. So I think each book by itself, I just leave it behind. I don’t even go back and read it again. Very rarely, I remember what I wrote. When I go back home and read it now, I always go back to it as a new reader. I don’t remember that I wrote this and then I exclaim- Oh! I wrote this,that’s interesting!

Author Profile

India Writes Network
India Writes Network
India Writes Network (www.indiawrites.org) is an emerging think tank and a media-publishing company focused on international affairs & the India Story. Centre for Global India Insights is the research arm of India Writes Network. To subscribe to India and the World, write to editor@indiawrites.org. A venture of TGII Media Private Limited, a leading media, publishing and consultancy company, IWN has carved a niche for balanced and exhaustive reporting and analysis of international affairs. Eminent personalities, politicians, diplomats, authors, strategy gurus and news-makers have contributed to India Writes Network, as also “India and the World,” a magazine focused on global affairs.

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