ABSTRACT
In the archaic modernity of neo-India, women’s reproductive potential has come to be viewed as both a scourge, most graphically illustrated by the aggressive and gendered nature of the population control policies pursued by the state (Van Hollen, 2003), as well as a boon, in that this potential is the reproducer of the Indian state and economy. In great measure, neo-India owes its rise to the army of its young workforce, and a reserve pool of a staggering 500 million people under the age of 19. In this respect, by fulfilling their traditional fecund remit within the parameters set by the state, Indian women make their reproductive labour valuable in the neo-liberal mode of production (Bharadwaj, 2006c). The contentious issue of the ethical sourcing of human embryos for ESC
generation has required the Indian state to examine how an ethical, but steady, supply of human embryonic tissue might be achieved to facilitate participation in the global moral economy. In line with the emerging global governance modalities spearheaded by the Euro-American countries, moves to legislate and promote embryonic research have led the Indian state to embrace guidelines that in large part draw inspiration from regulatory frameworks in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. This ‘ethical embrace’ has renewed the focus on women and, ironically, on their lack of reproductive potential, hitherto a subject confined to the realm of the family, community and religion. Women and their reproductive viability remained at the heart of family planning policies, promoting the two-child norm as the developmental ideal for a modern and prosperous nation, for much of India’s post-colonial history. However, in the new century, infertile women and their technologically induced oocytes and embryos are rapidly becoming state subjects in need of regulated development, production and circulation. This chapter examines how India’s participation in the global moral
economy lies at the intersection of local and global moral, economic and political concerns. In so doing, the chapter will discuss how the sacrifice of the embryonic form for stem cell research is becoming assimilated in
discursive realms as diverse as global, bureaucratic, and moral reasoning, and in the local moral worlds of donors, who not only become enrolled as ancillaries to the embryonic stem cell (ESC) production process, but are also enjoined to become neo-liberal citizens of neo-India.
