'Hum do hamare do' may soon be obsolete: Sakshi Maharaj has reason to be worried

So, it turns out that ‘hum do hamare do’ as a slogan for family planning may just have become slightly outdated in Indian cities. The fertility rate in urban India in urban areas has dropped below two births per woman after the year 2010, according to government data. At present, the fertility rate in urban India is 1.8 births per woman, which is lower than our colonial masters the United Kingdom, the United States and France, as per a report by The Times of India. So maybe, just maybe, all those sanskari Alok Nath films at the turn of the century had their intended effect after all. [caption id=“attachment_2731782” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] And you thought this was good news? On the contrary, this is very worrisome news indeed. Last year, Sakshi Maharaj, the wise MP from Unnao and the BJP’s ‘fringe element’-in-chief, had issued a clarion call to Hindus to produce at least four children to protect Hinduism. From the looks of things, it appears that the bharatiya naari is part of a sinister conspiracy against Hinduism. In these dark ages, women don’t even listen to the venerable gurujis of the Great Indian Family on how many children they must produce. The nerve! Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand are the only few ‘patriotic’ states which have a fertility rate of more than 2.1 births per woman. This is the magic figure below which the population begin to decline, as per a report by The Hindu. Even (gasp) the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat fails to make the cut, with two births per woman. This puts the state’s claim of being the laboratory of the great Hindutva experiment in serious peril. More worryingly, even rural India appears to be veering from the four-child norm laid down by our Hindutva gladiators. According to data cited by The Times of India, the fertility rate in rural areas has fallen from 5.4 births to 2.5 births for every woman. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat may believe rural India remains steeped in wholesome Indian values and has not been swayed by poisonous western concepts like family planning. However, these statistics indicate that his optimism may be misplaced. With the ideal of ‘hum do humare do’ fast becoming obsolete, it appears that Sakshi Maharaj has reason to be very, very worried.