New Delhi: It was the launch of a support forum for HIV+ women that had the Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chaudhry into a fiery speech about condoms.
"People might say, why should a woman do this for a man. But tell me, when he comes doddering home drunk, will he go buy condoms?” she asked.
But her potshot at men did not go down well with other political leaders, who too have been talking about sex, only to ask people to stop discussing it.
"I ask every one, do you want India to be a single parenting society? Yes or no? This reply should be heard by the PM, Arjun Singh, Sonia Gandhi and the Marxists," said BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi
But the Government itself is planning to spearhead its HIV prevention programme by focusing on condom promotion.
In the latest National AIDS Control Programme, the Government plans to push condom usage from Rs 210 crore this year, to Rs 350 crore by 2012.
But will it happen, with political leaders keeping mum?
"This moral hypocrisy that we posture with is only going to hurt our citizens a lot more. Leaders, opinion makers, and politicians must make it mandatory on to themselves that whatever forums they can access, they should verbalise these issues,” said Chaudhry.
Already, four states in India have banned sex education for moral reasons. Maybe it's time, the silence is broken.
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