Examining the debates on the 1965 bill in Parliament, scholars highlight the arguments of Shakuntal Paranjpya, a contraceptive advocate, who sought to add a restrictive clause limiting maternity benefits to the first two births. Image is for representational purposes only | Photo credit: Getty Images
A scholarly dissection of a contentious chapter in India’s legislative history has revealed how maternity benefit policies were deeply intertwined with concerns about population control in the 1960s.
StudiesPrarthana Dutta and Mithilesh Kumar Jha of the Indian Institute of Technology-Guwahati’s Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, is significant given the discussions on the proposed Population Regulation Bill 2019, which seeks incentives for families with two children and discourages those with more children.
The pair’s research was published in the latest edition of Modern Asian Studies, a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Cambridge University Press.
What the study found
The study goes back to the debates over the Maternity Benefit Act of 1961 and the debate over the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill of 1956. The researchers note that promoting the health of mothers and babies was the main reason for the 65-year-old law. “However, by the mid-1960s, maternity benefits were also increasingly questioned because they allegedly led to more births and ‘derailed’ the national family planning program. Restrictions on maternity benefits as a disincentive strategy for population control were proposed through various platforms,” the study says.
Examining the debates on the 1965 bill in Parliament, scholars highlight the arguments of Shakuntal Paranjpya, a contraceptive advocate, who sought to add a restrictive clause limiting maternity benefits to the first two births.
“Based on neo-Malthusian and eugenic logic, the Paranjpye Amendment sought to regulate the reproductive behavior of the working class. It was argued that the amendment would help curb population growth and ensure the satisfaction of economic needs as well as the availability of public services,” the study said.
The researchers found that the discourse on maternity benefits was equally laden with concerns about ‘overpopulation’. Populations belonging to the “lower social strata” such as the working class have been identified as prolific breeders and the main defaulters of the Planned Parenthood program.
“Indiscriminate reproduction”
“They (people from the lower social strata) were portrayed as a symbol of fertility whose only pleasure lay in wanton procreation. Maternity benefits were then seen as a further incentive to these practices. Remedies were sought to impose restrictions on the availability of maternity benefits,” the study said.
“Despite intense debate among legislators, the amendment, which was advocated as a measure leading to a limited and quality population, was rejected. Nevertheless, the debates are worth examining to understand prevailing ideas about reproductive behavior, differential fertility, and the alleged disregard for working-class women,” the study states.
Moving towards reproductive health
Researchers say there has been a gradual shift toward reproductive health in family planning programs since the late twentieth century. At the same time, maternal and infant health issues came to the fore in the debates about maternity benefits.
“The main rationale behind the amendment to the (Maternity Benefits) Act of 2017, which extended maternity leave up to 26 weeks, was the emphasis on exclusive breastfeeding and its long-term importance for the health of the child. In legislative debates on maternity benefits, population control was no longer given the same attention as in the mid-1960s,” they note.
“When a restrictive clause limiting the maximum allowable period of leave to 12 weeks for women with two or more surviving children was added to the law, it went largely unnoticed,” they conclude.
Published – 03 Apr 2026 14:40 IST
