Remembering deceased kin through assisted conception in India

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I examine the idea of fiction in relation to kinship by analyzing the role that memory plays in assisted reproduction in North India. I specifically engage with the desire to seek the intervention of in-vitro fertilization after the loss of a child, mostly sons, through an accident, prematurely. In the process, the paper engages with the kind of narratives that birthing women remember and speak of in seeking the ‘rebirth’ of their dead sons, and what this means for kinship per se. This is especially important in relation to the conflicts and ambivalence that mark intimate relationships; and the ways in which the IVF clinic and clinician seek to reimagine them in facilitating assisted conception. I suggest that the narratives surrounding these rebirths act as effective and powerful messages for normalizing IVF, and also to hide other forms of relatedness that come to mark conflicting, ambivalent and yet, deeply intimate relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• Infertility
• South Asia
• IVF
• memory
• ART

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Some of the other reasons for the choice of ARTs such as IVF amongst perimenopausal and postmenopausal women were: desire to overturn decades of childlessness and lack of knowledge or access to IVF earlier; to prevent their husbands marrying other women or divorcing them due to their childlessness; to birth heirs to inherit land and property; to overturn the stigma related to childlessness; and to ensure that they had someone to care for them as they aged. The last point is particularly problematic in the pursuit of aged assisted conception, as most of the men and women who got pregnant at ages 60 and above where beset with the care of infants, and the fear of death before their children had become adults.

2 Throughout the paper I will be uniformly using the term IVF, to refer to IVF and ARTs.

3 ‘This means that where family stories and memories are "fictitious" there can be social and personal ramifications arising from exposure’ (Smart 2009, 543).

4 Road accidents on North Indian highways are a common occurrence. Statistics suggest that over 137000 people were killed in road accidents in 2013, which roughly translates to one death every four minutes on Indian roads: very shocking numbers indeed (NDTV 2016). Minor children, usually boys are indulged with gifts of two-wheeler scooters which they take on joyrides without proper supervision into potential death traps (Brunson 2016). Besides road accidents, snake bites were a common cause of death amongst infants as well. In village homes with open courtyards leading into farms, snakes visited often: and toddlers and infants playing on the ground would be easy targets.

5 Rakshabandhan or the ritual of the ‘protective bond’ is celebrated annually in India where women tie a sacred thread on their brother’s wrist asking for his protection and support. Exchange of gifts is also an important part of the ritual.

6 The birth of Krishna is a popular myth to fall back on when thinking about assisted reproduction and surrogacy.

7 Ravinder Kaur (2008) suggests that in rural North India with skewed sex ratios, the daughter may be ‘dispensable’, but the daughter-in-law is not. All sons are not desired, just like daughters: it’s only the eldest son who will inherit property and carry the lineage forward that must remain alive, and marry. The incoming ‘daughter’ is important for the household, and to the survival of the patrilineage—and not the incumbent daughter.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Wellcome Trust.

Notes on contributors

Anindita Majumdar

Anindita Majumdar has been researching commercial surrogacy, kinship and infertility since 2010. Her book based on her ethnographic research was published in 2017 and is titled Transnational Commercial Surrogacy and the (Un)Making of Kin in India. The monograph was shortlisted for the Bloomsbury LSE Social Anthropology Monograph Award 2016. Other publications include the Oxford India Short Introductions Series on Surrogacy, published in 2019. She is currently researching and writing on the linkages between ageing and assisted reproductive technologies in India, supported by Wellcome UK, and the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR).