Adequate sex education in India has been lacking for centuries. However, India has started to make way for a whole new sex education curriculum. Here are five facts about sex education in India.

5 Facts About Sex Education in India

1. The current Indian Health Minister was against sex education in India. In 2014, India’s Health Minister, Harsh Vardhan, declared that he wanted to ban sex education. Instead of sex education, Vardhan declared that yoga should be compulsory in schools. This declaration against sex education was in opposition to a 2007 health education program for adolescents that India’s National AIDS Control Organization and its Ministry of Human Resource Development was promoting. He opposed this education because he believed it was against traditional Indian values. In an interview with the New York Times, Vardhan said, “condoms promise safe sex, but the safest sex is through faithfulness to one’s partner.” There was a great amount of uproar among opposers because of all his comments on this topic encouraged abstinence over education. After receiving a lot of grief from his comments opposing sex education, he tweeted, “Media got it wrong again. I am against “so-called” sex education not sex education per se. Crudity, Vulgarity out, values in.”
2. Teachers were threatened with violence if they were to conduct sex education. Around the same time as Vardhan’s comments, the right-wing group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti led an attack that included “threats of physical violence against teachers and schools that dared to carry out the 2007 health education program. As a consequence, several different states in India banned sex education.
3. Better sex education is now a part of India’s school curriculum. After years of sex education being banned in many Indian states, Prime Minister Narendra Modi rolled out a sex education program in 2018. This training is vital since India is number three in the world’s HIV epidemic. This education involves role-playing and activity-based modules that are taught by trained teachers and student peer educators. In this training, students learn about sexual violence and sexual health among other topics. The whole training in total is 22 hours. Each week the schools set aside one period for the training.
4. The Internet Could Be a Key Tool to Provide More Comprehensive Sex Education. Better India conducted research in 2017 and found that 77 percent of males and 54 percent of females use the internet. Projections show that internet usage will reach more than 600 million people by 2021. In a society where sex is taboo, learning about sex education privately online is often times the solution. Media content on sex education in Hindi has become popular. mDhil’s videos on sex and STIs have received 1.2 million views on YouTube. The shareability of this content increases the reach of sex education.
5. The fight for fair sex education is not over. Despite great strides, sex education is still considered taboo in India. It is considered by many to be a Western influence that corrupts Indian culture. The Family Planning Association of India conducted a workshop on “Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for All” in July of 2019. The organization hopes to break down taboos around sex, reproduction and homosexuality. India’s Health Ministry is also working to improve awareness about sex and sexuality. In 2017, it stated homosexual feelings are natural. This is a progressive stance for a country with previous laws against homosexual intercourse.

This biggest barrier toward sex education in India will probably be cultural norms against talking about sex. These norms are heavily ingrained in Indian society. However, India is making small but important steps to provide more comprehensive sex education.

– Emily Joy Oomen

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