Right wing parties ‘finds way’ to ensure fair-skinned babies in India

A medical group linked with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) has devised a way to help "dark-skinned" parents produce fair super babies, Indian Express reported on Sunday.

According to the Garbh Vigyan Sanskar project of the RSS's health wing Arogya Bharati, this is what is needed for a woman to deliver an "uttam santati" -- a perfect, "customised child".

Speaking to The Express, top office-bearers associated with this ambitious programme said it was launched in Gujarat over a decade ago, and taken up at the national level in 2015. Today, the project, assisted by the Sangh's education wing Vidya Bharati, has around 10 branches in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, with more units to come up soon in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

"Our main objective is to make a samarth Bharat (strong India) through uttam santati. Our target is to have thousands of such babies by 2020," said Dr Karishma Mohandas Narwani, national convener of the project.

According to the office-bearers, the project was inspired by Germany, which they claimed had "resurrected itself by having such signature children through Ayurvedic practices within two decades after World War II".

"The parents may have lower IQ, with a poor educational background, but their baby can be extremely bright. If the proper procedure is followed, babies of dark-skinned parents with lesser height can have fair complexion and grow taller," said Dr Hitesh Jani, national convener, Arogya Bharati.Jani, a veteran RSS swayamsevak who also heads the panchkarma department at Gujarat Ayurved University in Jamnagar, said the procedure to get an "uttam santati or a customised child is mentioned in the (Hindu) shastras".

The project claims to have ensured the delivery of 450 "customised babies" so far, and its target is to have a Garbh Vigyan Anusandhan Kendra, a facilitation centre, in every state by 2020.According to Narwani, Arogya Bharati has held several seminars and counselling sessions on Garbh Vigyan Sanskar in Delhi and Mumbai, and smaller cities such as Udupi in Karnataka, Kasaragod in Kerala, and Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh.

The next counselling sessions were scheduled to be held in Kolkata over the weekend, followed by Rohtak and Gurgaon in Haryana, she said.Narwani claimed that the project "is not an intervention in the natural process" but based on the principles of Ayurveda.

"Ayurveda has all the details about how we can get the desired physical and mental qualities of babies. IQ is developed during the sixth month of pregnancy. If the mother undergoes specific procedures, like what to eat, listen and read, the desired IQ can be achieved. Thus, we can get a desired, customised baby," she said.The office-bearers claimed that this procedure "repairs genes" by ensuring that genetic defects are not passed on to babies.

Dr Ashok Kumar Varshney, an RSS pracharak for over 30 years and national organising secretary of Arogya Bharati, said that apart from the university in Jamnagar, two other institutions have incorporated Garbh Vigyan Sanskar in their curriculum: Children's University in Gandhinagar and Atal Bihari Vajpayee Hindi University in Bhopal.Varshney said the project was inspired by the advice a senior RSS ideologue received over 40 years ago in Germany.

"He was told that it was due to a woman called 'Mother of Germany'. When he met her and asked about this resurrection, she told him, 'you have come from India, have you not heard of Abhimanyu (the son of Arjuna in the epic Mahabharata)?' She told him that the new generation in Germany was born through Garbh Sanskar and that is why the country is so developed," said Varshney.

In the Mahabharata, Abhimanyu is described as having learnt the art of breaking the "chakravyuh" (a circular trap) inside the womb of his mother as his father narrated the method."The shastras prescribe a specific time to have intercourse for pregnancy. Doctors tell couples when they should become intimate on the basis of their horoscope and planetary configurations... Once the baby is conceived, you cannot have intimacy. It is suicidal for the mother and the baby," claimed Varshney.

Narwani and Jani hold Bachelor's degrees in ayurveda, medicine and surgery, and Varshney obtained a PhD in biochemistry from Allahabad University in 1986.According to Jani, the project is conducted in two parts -- before and after pregnancy. "The first part involves 'nadi shuddhi' (purification of energy channels) and 'deh shuddhi' (purification of body) for 90 days. During this period, we purify the male's sperm and the female's egg. The new egg and sperm thus developed will not have genetic defects," he claimed.

After the baby is conceived, he said, stress is placed on "proper food" for the mother during pregnancy.

"Calcium is required in the third month when bones develop; therefore, she should take milk and related products. Brain is developed in the fifth month, hence ghee is required. When eyes develop during the sixth or seventh month, she needs vitamin A," Varshney said.

But that's not all. "If the mother chants shlokas and mantras, it helps in the mental growth of the baby... if she leads such a life, there will be no labour pain and the baby will gain up to 300g more weight."