Karnataka Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar led to outrage on Sunday after he claimed that modern Indian women wanted to stay single and were unwilling to give birth even after marriage. He also claimed that many women wanted to have children through surrogacy. He further went on to add that the mindset was "not good".
The claims were made during an event he was addressing on the occasion of World Mental Health Day at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurological Sciences (NIMHANS).
"Today, I am sorry to say this, lots of modern women in India want to stay single. Even if they get married, they don't want to give birth. They want surrogacy. So there is a paradigm shift in our thinking, which is not good," he said.
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Lamenting the "western influence" on Indian society, the Minister said people are not willing to let their parents be with them.
"Unfortunately, today we are going in a western way. We don't want our parents to live with us, forget about grandparents being with us," the minister said.
The minister's comments went viral on social media and many criticised him for making suchbizarre and "misogynistic" claims, especially on World Mental Health Day.
Speaking about mental health in India, Sudhakar said every seventh Indian has some kind of mental issue, which could be mild, moderate and severe.
However, according to him, stress management is an art and Indian need not have to learn but preach the world how to handle it.
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"Stress management is an art. This art we need not learn as Indians. We need to preach to the world how to handle stress, because yoga, meditation and Pranayama are the wonderful tools that our ancestors had taught the world thousands of years back," he said.
About COVID-19 and mental health, Sudhakar said the relatives were not able to touch the bodies of their near and dear ones, which caused them mental agony.
"The pandemic made the government start counselling COVID-19 patients. Till date we have counselled 24 lakh COVID-19 patients in Karnataka. I don't know any other state which has done this," Sudhakar said.
