Many of you would wonder what Bharatiya Janata Party MP and firebrand Sakshi Maharaj and Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have in common.
Well, for one, they both want parents to have more children.
While Sakshi was slammed and criticised for asking Hindu women to produce four children to promote a Hindu-dominant agenda, Iran, under the rule of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is mulling to reverse progressive laws on family planning by outlawing voluntary sterilisation and restricting access to contraceptives.
Here are their opinions on the issue:
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
In October, last year, criticised existing policy on contraception, describing it as an imitation of western lifestyle. “If we move forward like this, we will be a country of elderly people in a not too distant future. Why do some [couples] prefer to have one … or two children? Why do men or women avoid having children through different means?
The reasons need to be studied. We are not a country of 75 million, we have [the capacity] to become at least 150 million people, if not more.”
Sakshi Maharaj:
In January, BJP’s Sakshi Maharaj, the MP from Unnao, while addressing a gathering, said, “The concept of four wives and 40 children just won't work in India but it is high time that every Hindu woman must produce at least four children to protect the Hindu religion. Give one to the army, another to us religious leaders and teachers.”
