ArticlePDF Available

Revisiting surrogacy in India: domino effects of the ban

October 2020
Journal of Gender Studies 30(1):1-11

DOI:10.1080/09589236.2020.1830044

Authors:

University of Cape Town

In this paper, I use a multi-scalar approach to understand the full repercussions of a national ban on the transnational practice of surrogacy in India. I use my ethnographic findings to analyse the effects of the ban on the local and the national. At the level of the local I revisit a surrogacy clinic and hostel in India, after a decade of my first ethnographic research, to argue that despite the legal upheavals, not much had changed for the gestational mothers themselves. The rigid discipline structure and the ambiguities around contract, payment, and post-natal care remain intact. There is, however, a noticeable dissipation in the gestational mothers’ demands for change in part due to a management’s strategy of manufacturing consent and loyalty. At the national level as India moves from specializing in babies ‘Made in India’ to ‘Make in India’, its role in the reproductive assembly line is transformed, with repercussions for gestational mothers. In the concluding remarks, I propose an alternative to the current debates by offering surrogacy as a praxis for opening up discussions about feminisms and transnational feminisms.

Content uploaded by Amrita Pande

Content may be subject to copyright.

For Peer Review Only

Revisiting Surrogacy in India: Domino effects of the Ban

Journal:

Journal of Gender Studies

Manuscript ID

CJGS-2020-0073.R1

Manuscript Type:

Research Article

Keywords:

Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, Surrogacy ban, Make in India,

manufacturing consent, transnational feminism

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

Revisiting Surrogacy in India: Domino effects of the Ban

Asha Fertility Clinic, India, February 2017

I am at Dr Durga’s new and improved fertility clinic – a three storey

glass and steel building in the middle of sugarcane fields in a small city

in Western India. The basement is the domain of “surrogates” or

women who are to be gestational mothers – their home for the next

nine months. There are 12 rooms with 10 beds in each, all occupied by

women in various stages of their pregnancy. Most are lying down

watching a cartoon play on loop on the television. Unlike in my last

visits, where women in the old surrogacy hostel spoke constantly, with

loud laughter, giggles and “high fives”, of camaraderie amidst all the

pain and the hopes of changing their lives through this work, the

underlying mood today is of boredom. Aarati, seems to speak for them

all when she says: “I don't even know whether I will get paid anymore.

The government has told the doctor that this (surrogacy) is wrong. I

don't know if it’s right or wrong for them. I thought it is right for me.”

(Excerpt from research Field notes)

In Aug 2015, the government of India presented an affidavit to the Supreme

Court declaring a ban on transnational commercial surrogacy, restricting it to

heterosexual Indian couples who have been married for five years, have no

existing children and are able to persuade a relative to become a gestational

mother altruistically for them (Najar 2015). After much deliberation, this ban

and the 2016 Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha

(Lower Parliament) in 2018. It was expected to be endorsed by the upper

parliament in 2019 but was sent to a select committee for discussion. In

March 2020, the parliament approved the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill 2020

after incorporating recommendations made by the committee, including the

changed clause that a “willing woman” and not just a “close relative” can

become a surrogate mother, and that widows and divorced women can also

access the services. As of August 2020, the Bill is yet to be passed as a law.

Page 1 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

While the effects of the blanket ban on commercial surrogacy are yet to

unfold, the impacts of the legal upheavals since 2015 are gradually being

documented (Huber et al 2018, Nair and Kalarivayil 2018, Pande 2016, Parry

and Ghoshal 2018, Reddy et al 2018, Rudrappa 2017, Srivastava 2017). In

this paper I use a multi-scalar approach to understand the full repercussions

of a national ban on a transnational practice by analysing the effects of the

ban on the local (the clinic) and the national (India’s role within the fertility

industry), and by opening up conversations about dialogues at the

transnational scale. At the level of the local I revisit a surrogacy clinic and

hostel in India, after a decade of my first ethnographic research, to argue that

despite the legal upheavals, not much has changed for the gestational

mothers themselvesi. The rigid discipline structure and the ambiguities around

contract, payment and post-natal care remain intact. Within the clinic and

hostel space, however, there is a noticeable dissipation in the gestational

mothers’ demands for change, in part due to a management’s strategy of

manufacturing consent and loyalty. At the national level, as India moves from

specialising in babies “Made in India” to “Make in India”ii, its role in the

reproductive assembly line is transformed, with repercussions for gestational

mothers. India is now a grey zone of pre-conception assemblage – a hub

where eggs and sperms are assembled into embryos, frozen and/or exported

for gestation in women in countries with no surrogacy regulations. In the first

section of the paper, I critically analyse the recent legal upheavals in

surrogacy. In the second section, I revisit the field to reveal the effects of the

legal changes on the local (the clinic). In the next section I expand the scale of

analysis by unpacking the ramifications of the ban on India’s role within the

Page 2 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

reproductive assembly line. In the concluding remarks, I propose an

alternative to the current debates by offering surrogacy as a praxis for

opening up discussions around feminisms and transnational feminisms.

The history of surrogacy in India

In the past decade, a rich and nuanced scholarship has emerged about

the practice of surrogacy in India. The work of feminist scholars, who have

revealed the exploitative potentials of this transnational practice of assisted

reproduction, and yet conceptualised surrogacy in India as labour, is worth

highlighting here (Majumdar 2017, Pande 2010, Rudrappa 2015). The point of

contention is to go beyond the bioethical critique of commodification of birth

and instead conduct a critical analysis that reveals its multiple complexities,

especially in the global south. By discussing gestational surrogacy as labour,

these scholars are not equating surrogacy to any and all other forms of

productive or reproductive labour (Oksala 2019). The attempt is, instead, to

refrain from equating the women workers in the south as mere “resources” or

sites of consumption and to highlight the linkages between intimacy,

domesticity and paid work (Majumdar 2018). Although a powerful challenge to

the existing frames for analyzing surrogacy, Dalit feminists from India and

critical race scholars from outside have warned feminist scholars of

reproductive labour against excessive reliance on (Northern) interpretations of

choice and bodily autonomy in their understanding of labour, especially labour

which is embedded in sexual and moral economies (Rao 2019, Twine 2015).

Much like Dalit feminists have challenged sex work as an occupation of

choice for Dalit women, and instead highlighted the intersections between

Page 3 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

gender and caste in constraining the availability of viable livelihood choices

(Guru 2020), there is a need to bring focus to the neoliberal global forces that

make surrogacy the only viable option for some women. Inspired by Black

feminist demand for reproductive justice, surrogacy scholars are now shifting

focus away from liberal notions of choice and autonomy to the ways in which

socioeconomic contexts and geopolitical locations shape women’s

reproductive and livelihood options (Pande 2016, 2020 Vora 2012, Twine

2015). Instead of analysing surrogacy as an occupation of choice in India,

scholars have focused on the paradox of neoliberal capitalism wherein a

market in new reproductive technologies and services can be sustained along

with a vehemently anti-natal state, and a reproductive body formerly

considered “wasteful” can be profitably transformed into sites of profit

generation.

Although the U.S remains the world leader in commercial surrogacy,

India emerged as the choice destination for cross border commercial

surrogacy due to several intersecting factors. Surrogacy packages cost less

than half in India, relative to the United States (Cunha 2014). Despite the

ailing public health system, India has a robust private health care system,

offering world class facilities, and English speaking doctors. The complete

lack of surrogacy regulations, between 2006 and 2012, allowed clinics to

offer services that are banned or heavily regulated in other parts of the world

(for instance, no restrictions on number of embryo transferred into the

gestational mother). There was the added convenience of a package deal

where everything from the recruitment of gestational mothers to a passport for

the baby was coordinated by the clinic. As one such professional broker

Page 4 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

adverstised, “See Taj Mahal by the moonlight while your embryo grows in a

Petri-dish” (Pande 2011). The immense structural inequality between the

intended parents and the gestational mothers was another factor. Unlike

contractual surrogacy relations in the U.S, in some clinics in India, women

could be placed under constant surveillance during the months of their

pregnancy with their diet, movement and everyday activity supervised by the

clinic. A working class Indian woman, with little understanding of the medical

and legal procedures, was unlikely to fight for custody over the baby that she

gave birth to for clients from the U.K or the U.S. Surrogacy in India was,

arguably, a “win-win” deal for intended parents. How did this win-win situation

evolve into the current restrictive policy front? The trajectory of the many

guidelines and bills reveals the messy nature of surrogacy debates in India.

The prohibitory nature of the current bill, for instance, needs to be

contrasted with the government’s reluctance to pass any concrete laws around

surrogacy until now. The delays and discrepancies in the debates highlight the

conflict of interests embedded in taking any legal stand. The Indian Council of

Medical Research (ICMR), as an institution of the Ministry of Health and Family

Welfare (MoHFW), was the first to suggest a set of guidelines, published in

2005 as the National Guidelines for Accreditation, Supervision and Regulation

of ART Clinics in India. This was later revised and prepared as a Draft ART

(Regulation) Bill in 2008 and again in 2010. Apart from the ICMR guidelines,

the Law Commission of India published its 228th Report on the Need for

Legislation to Regulate Assisted Reproductive Technology Clinics as well As

Rights and Obligations of Parties to Surrogacy in 2009, which presented a

critique of the Draft ART Bill (Law Commission of India). The report

Page 5 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

recommended taking a “pragmatic” legal approach, one that would prohibit

commercial surrogacy in its entirety but allow altruistic surrogacy. For the Law

commission, and as per the 228th Report, surrogacy is not necessarily immoral,

and may in fact be a desirable way to deal with infertility. The problem is its

commercialization. Despite these recommendations the subsequent Draft ART

Bill (2010) yet again proposed the legalisation of commercial gestational

surrogacy. This dissonance continued to divide the ICMR and the MoHFW from

not just the Law Commission but also the Union Government. In 2013, however,

the MoHFW seems to start towing the Union line and 2014 draft bill put forward

by the health ministry and the National Commission for Women (NCW)

proposes to ban surrogacy for all foreigners. While the previous prohibitions

drew a sharp contrast between national and cross border aspects of surrogacy,

the latest Bill assumes a similar dichotomy between altruistic and commercial

surrogacy (V, Nadimpally and Bhatt 2018). The assumption seems to be that

the non-payment of gestational mothers will do away with the exploitative

potential of surrogacy.

That the Bill was ultimately accepted by the parliament should not take

attention away from the series of consultations and criticisms of its various

clauses. Feminists and health activists have criticized the Bill for a variety of

reasons - that it is totally inadequate in addressing the concerns of the women

who give birth, it draws an artificial binary between altruistic and commercial

surrogacy and it leaves out of its ambit the larger industry of Assisted

Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) and in-vitro fertilisation that may not involve

a third party (egg, sperm providers or surrogates) but is as commercial and

profit-driven (Qadeer, 2010; Sama, 2010, 2017, Pande 2016, 2017). In fact

Page 6 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

even the Parliamentary Standing Committee 102nd report (2017), tasked with

submitting a detailed assessment of the Bill, recognised the potential for

exploitation within the surrogacy model that prevailed in India but asserted that

“this potential for exploitation is linked to the lack of regulatory oversight and

lack of legal protection to the gestational mother and can be minimized through

adequate legislative norm-setting and robust regulatory oversight”. This

observation was followed by a strongly worded caution against the celebration

of an altruistic model of surrogacy (Report pp 13). In my earlier works, I have

talked at length about this naïve celebration of altruistic surrogacy, expecting a

woman to engage in such emotional, stigmatised and embodied work for free

is, in itself, exploitative. Altruistic surrogacy may seem ideal for erasing the

alleged commodification of bodies, emotions and children within the industry,

but it does nothing to reduce the exploitative potentials of this industry or

empower its workers (Author 2014). In essence, altruistic surrogacy reinforces

the stereotype of women as “naturally” nurturant and selfless – by making their

labour and hardships free of charge and, in essence, oppresses women under

the guise of celebrating their altruism. Due to gender imbalances and power

inequalities within families and households, women are often pushed to be

altruistic. This becomes particularly critical in India, where altruism and

gendered notions of familial duty, have often been forced onto female relatives,

or those in positions of relative vulnerability for instance domestic workers. But

despite all these constructive criticisms and recommendations, the Bill is very

likely to be passed as law in India.

The Indian government is convinced that the underlying problems with

surrogacy will be erased by enforcing altruism and restricting the clientele to

Page 7 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

couples who the government deems legitimate – namely heterosexual

married Indian couples. This Bill is another clear indication of the conservative

hetero-normative ethics of the current government. A senior leader of the

government, Sushma Swaraj’s succinct retort to those who labeled the Bill

“homophobic” is telling: “We do not recognise homosexual or live-in

relationships; that is why they are not allowed to commission babies through

surrogacy. It is against our ethos.” For Swaraj and the current right-wing

Indian government “homosexuals” remain a problematic “minuscule minority”

who do not deserve the dignity of identity or personhood. The 2020 standing

committee, tasked with evaluating the most recent Bill, suggested an

extension of these services to divorced or windowed women but once again

fell short of recommending non-discriminatory access to surrogacy outside of

heteronormativity and marital status .

The Bill, although still not passed as a law, has officially put a stop on

all forms of international surrogacy, and stemmed the surrogacy industry,

roughly estimated to be over Indian Rupees 250 billion (2 billion GBP) and

involving over 3000 clinics across India (Law Commission of India, 2009,

Sarojini, Marwah and Shenoi 2011). Although the exact impact of these new

restrictions is yet to unfold, the immediate effects can be seen in clinics, for

instance, at Asha Fertility Clinic.

Research Setting and Method

Asha Fertility Clinic is my pseudonym for one of the surrogacy clinics

that became the centre of the transnational surrogacy industry in India. It has

served clients from over 45 countries and has a track record of over 10,000

IVF birth, including over 1400 babies borne out of surrogacy. This clinic, and

Page 8 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

the attached surrogacy “hostels”, where the gestational mothers reside for the

entire length of their pregnancy, has been my field-home since 2006, when

transnational surrogacy was booming in India. This paper is part of this larger

research project, for which I conducted fieldwork between 2006 and 2019.

Apart from in-depth, open-format interviews with 112 surrogates over 13

years, I also interviewed their families, the clients, doctors, hostel matrons and

surrogacy brokers. The interviews were conducted in Hindi and in the local

language of the regioniii and were conducted either in the clinic, the surrogacy

hostels where most surrogates live, or at their homes. I have used

pseudonyms for all places and people.

Over these years I conducted participant observation for 13 months at

one surrogacy hostel (2006-2008) and then another three months in the new

wing of the hostel (over 2010-2011). I spent all day with the women, cooked

lunches for them, prayed with them and even attended computer and English

classes with them. In 2012, I revisited the hostel, with a Danish research-

based stage artist team, and organized participatory livelihood generating

embroidery workshops and an interactive theatre production with the

gestational mothers. These repeat visits and multimodal research methods

provided the opportunity for dialogue and mutual learning between the

researcher and the researched. Elsewhere, I have expanded on multimodal

ethnography as a tool of feminist research (Author 2020). This paper is based

on a field visit conducted in 2016, exactly a decade after my first visit to the

clinic and hostel. This was a period in transition. Although the ban on

transnational surrogacy had been announced there were over 50 women who

were in a contractual relationship with transnational clients, and in various

Page 9 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

stages of pregnancy. This visit spanned 28 days, wherein I conducted

participant observation in the new surrogacy clinic and hostel and interacted

with 52 gestational mothers at the hostel.

All gestational mothers are married, divorced or widowed, with at least

one child. Their ages range between 20 to 45 years. Except five who had

completed their schooling and attained professional degrees, all others had

not completed their schooling. Two of the 52 identified as ‘housewives’, five

worked in banking and retail, and all others worked in the informal labour

market as domestic workers, street vendors, and farmers or as cleaners and

assistants at the clinic. The median family income was about INR 3000 (GBP

30) per month and the money earned through surrogacy was equivalent to

almost five years of total family income. Eight of these women were “repeat

surrogates”, women who had been paid gestational mothers multiple times.

Many of these women were involved in some aspect of work at the clinic,

either as hostel matron, surrogacy brokers, cleaners or nurse assistants.

Revisiting the local: Asha fertility clinic

One of immediate consequences of the Surrogacy Bill has been to

push clinics to devise new ways of surviving. While there have been reports of

underground and illegal clinics continuing to practice commercial surrogacy

(Dangerfield 2017), established and registered clinics have taken a legal

route. In 2016, when the ban on transnational surrogacy had just been

imposed, I interviewed Dr Asha, the founder, manager and main fertility

professional of the clinic, via Skype. She responded with a fair bit of

resentment about the ban, which she believes is a conspiracy of the western

Page 10 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

world and media, “Basically this has all to do with the western world and the

media who do not have the guts to point their fingers at the US, which has the

highest number of the surrogacy cases. The western media is making India

look bad.” When I focused my query on how her own services have been

affected, Dr Asha stated that her services remain unaffected by the ban on

transnational clients,

We have expanded to many specialities, knee replacement, dental,

cosmetic, human milk bank, for us it is not a problem. Also you must

realise that the demand for fertility treatment has not gone down, IVF is

still going on for foreigners, and there is no restrictions on egg

donation…. But the surrogates themselves are very upset. They feel

that their rights are being taken away, they are adults doing this

voluntarily. They don’t mind Indian clients, Indian clients are also very

nice, they are lovely but Indians pay less than foreigners, about 25 per

cent less.. … it’s just a matter of currency conversion. The surrogates

are being taken off as well as before, it’s just that now the clients are

fewer. And of course this affects the whole economy – the shopping ,

the tourism, from all the foreigners and the NRIs who were coming

here.

Dr. Asha insists that her clinic remains unaffected because the clampdown is

partial and on just one aspect of a broader fertility industry. The clients, the

gestational mothers and the Indian economy are bearing the brunt of the ban.

When I revisited the field, the presence of foreigners in the town had, indeed,

Page 11 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

declined significantly and the two hotels, catering exclusively to the clinic’s

clientele, were considering closing down. Just a year before the ban, Dr. Asha

had inaugurated a brand-new multiple storeyed hospital and research centre

in the outskirts of the city. When I visited the new hospital, the upper wings of

the hospital, residence for the intended parents, had a completely abandoned

feel. Rooms had been designed, to meet the needs of clients with varying

budgets and needs and ranged from a “normal ward” to the silver, gold,

diamond and platinum suites. The platinum suites meant mostly for

international clients, for instance, are five-star luxury self-catering units with a

bar fridge, electric stoves, microwaves, flat screen television and even some

basic neo-natal technology. This floor and the adjoining gymnasium, cafe,

playroom, feeding room all had a similar deserted feel. A cleaning staff

believed that her “Madam” (Doctor Asha) has been cheated by the ban,

“Doctor Madam spent so much money building this massive infrastructure,

now see what the ban has done, there is no one to use these facilities!” The

managerial staff were far more careful about revealing the impact of the ban

on their profits. During my visit the clinic was under the stewardship of a

younger male doctor, Dr Yogi, while Dr Asha gave her “IVF talks” in the U.K.

Dr Yogi gave a well-rehearsed talk on the negative impact of the ban on

clients and the gestational mothers but was careful to emphasize that Dr.

Asha was willing to accept whatever laws were passed, and her services

remain uneffaced by the ban. He did, however, criticize the informal yet

forceful nature of the ban notice.

Page 12 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

There was no transition period, an email and a physical mail came

suddenly in November 2015, “From tomorrow you have to stop doing it

for foreigners immediately”. They should have given at least a 6 month

transition period!

How did the abrupt nature of the ban affect the women who were already

pregnant for international clients? In response to this question, Dr.Yogi talked

at length about the initial chaos around payment, citizenship and the

continuing ambivalence around the status of frozen embryos,

So now this is banned for non-residents and foreigners, but some the

surrogates here conceived before the ban, there was a period of panic.

We had to ask the government and, Thank God, they agreed that for

those who are already pregnant, we can continue. Now all of the new

surrogates are for Indians. But we have a lot of frozen foreigner

embryos here – of couples who could not get a positive result the first

time. We have an entire section on the second floor where it’s just

frozen embryos, all the clients who wanted a second chance, but all

that is on hold. We are requesting the government to consider. We get

mails and mails from these couples, and how long can we continue to

freeze all these embryos?

Dr. Asha’s and Dr. Yogi’s narratives bring out one of the fundamental flaws of

the Surrogacy Bill – its inability to connect surrogacy to IVF, third party

reproductions, egg provision, sperm provision, embryo freezing and related

Page 13 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

aspects of the fertility industry. The Bill covers just one, and arguably

statistically minor, aspect of the entire ART industry, a completely privatised

health industry with several related services and concerns associated with

gamete donation, in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and embryo transfers, which

remain unaddressed. While the earlier 2005, 2008, 2010 ART Bills came

under much scrutiny, partly because these Bills included surrogacy within the

broader ambit of ARTs, the move towards a separate Surrogacy Bill has taken

attention away from all the related technologies. In fact, some of the experts

involved in the making of the ART Bills were not even consulted in the making

and passing of the later Surrogacy Bills (Reddy et al 2018).

After the meeting with the professionals in the main floor, I ventured

into the basement, the haven for gestational mothers, to understand how the

ban has affected their lives. The demography of gestational mothers has not

changed much in the past decade since my first entry as an ethnographer,

most are poor women engaging in surrogacy out of financial desperation.

There are, however, some outliers – educated, middle class women

engaging in surrogacy, not out of financial desperation, but to save or invest in

property or towards a long term goal. Roopali, Vrinda, Trina and Sharmila are

all repeat gestational mothers, saving up to buy a house. Trina, a former

gestational mother, and now a surrogacy “coordinator” has a double degree,

BCom and LLB. But these degrees, she says, were not enough to buy a

house. Trina has been a gestational mother twice and delivered two sets of

twins for intended parents from the US and the U.K. She used the money to

buy a house. She is now an employee at the clinic and manages the lives of

the 79 gestational mothers housed in 12 rooms in the basement of the clinic.

Page 14 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

The conversations with the coordinator reveal that the recruitment of

gestational mothers has become far simpler in the past decade. The news of

the Doctor’s success and the media attention on surrogacy has reduced some

of the stigma surrounding surrogacy and women routinely arrive at the clinic

door to sign up as gestational mothers, from nearby villages, cities and even

from other Indian states. Trina announces, “Now Madam is so famous that

they (the women) mostly come from word of mouth or from seeing in

newspaper or TV. There is no need for any brokers”.

While the recruitment structure may have become simpler, with less

reliance on brokers, disciplining at the surrogacy home remains unchanged.

Women are expected to stay at the residence for the entire length of their

pregnancy and a surrogacy matron monitors their everyday activities. The

timetable is structured around injections, rest, and “training” activities with a

typical schedule outlined below:

7 am: Tea, biscuits and vitamins/medications

8.30 am: Breakfast

10 a.m-12pm: Beauty parlour class where a beautician comes to teach

them pedicure, manicure, eyebrow waxing, facial etc.

12.30-2: Lunch and rest

2-4: Embroidery and tailoring class

4-5: Tea and TV/Prayer time

5-6.30 Spoken English classes for illiterate women.

Scholars of surrogacy in India have talked of the restrictive nature of

life within the hostels, with little space for physical movement, privacy or even

space for interactions with their own families (DasGupta and Dasgupta 2014,

Pande 2010, Weinbaum 2019). As a response to these criticisms, there is

now a green space for any evening walks, a lounge area for visits by family

members, a television area, and a Hindu temple, where allegedly all women,

Page 15 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

irrespective of their religions, go for evening prayers. The logistics around

payments and contracts remain as ambiguous, despite a decade long

conversation around the exploitative potential of surrogacy contracts and the

payment structure of commercial surrogacy in India (Dasgupta and Dasgupta

2014, Majumdar 2017, Pande 2014, Rudrappa 2015, Sama 2012,

Sarvananan 2018). Although all gestational mothers recalled signing a

contract along with their husbands, most did not remember the clauses and

none of the women had a copy of their contracts. Even as a surrogacy

coordinator, Trina is reluctant to discuss the clauses of the contract. She

summarises the payment structure laid out in the contract,

They usually get around INR 4 laks (GBP 4000). Sometimes foreigners

pay more and if they have twins the rate is INR 85000 (850 GBP)

more. If the party (intended parents) is happy with you, they often pay

some extra... The contract lays out where the party is from, and

payment will be in which currency. The party pays a monthly stipend of

4000 INR (40 GBP), after 5 months she gets INR 25000 (250 GBP), 8

months again 25000 (250 GBP), rest 3.5 laks (3500 GBP) after

delivery”.

Trina’s summary of the contract reveals that the payment structure

remains skewed, with nearly 90 percent of the payment being contingent on a

successful live delivery. On my query, “What if there is a late miscarriage or

some other problem in the third trimester?”, I am given a vague response,

“Madam gives as much as she can". A decade ago, I had observed a similar

Page 16 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

paradox of structured and systematic recruitment and disciplining of the

gestational mothers, yet a stark informality in the payment structure. Much of

the details around consent, contract, payment structure, and post-natal care is

left to the benevolence of the doctors. While the clinic continues to ostensibly

follow the contract suggested by the Indian Council of medical research

(https://www.icmr.nic.in/sites/default/files/guidelines/c.pdf), only fragments of the

contract are explained to the women. The length of the post-natal recovery

period is decided by the doctor and varies from a week to up to one month.

Despite all the parliamentary debates and the media scandals around

surrogacy, not much seems to have changed in the work and living conditions

at the clinic and in the hostels. Do the women perceive any change in the

contract and work conditions? In my previous works I had observed, with

much optimism, the signs of nascent organisation by the women themselves

(Author 2009, 2014). Women had successfully made demands to better their

contracts, for instance, extra money when they delivered twins, and to be

reimbursed for the recruitment fee paid by them to surrogacy brokers. The

vision and energy for imagining change seems to have dissipated with the

mundanity of their everyday routine. Unlike a decade ago when the industry

was still at its nascent stage, and solidarities forged by the women could

become spontaneous avenues for changes, the regime of the clinic had

effectively diminished struggle. Was this an indication of management’s

success in “manufacturing consent” through co-optation and subtle coercion

(Burawoy 1974)?

The answer is complex and relies only, in part, on the internal changes

and management strategies. The management has indeed devised ways to

Page 17 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

manufacture consent and reward loyalty of repeat gestational mothers. The

grievance meetings, facilitated by the hostel chef, are just one example. The

management has strategically organised this weekly meeting where the

women can voice their complaints. In all the meetings I attended, the

grievances and heated discussions were only about the daily menu. One

“grievance” meeting that lasted over two hours was all about women

demanding a change in menu, where the chef’s plan of introducing alu

paratha (bread stuffed with potato) for breakfast was debated and voted out in

favour of chat papri (spicy yogurt and fried dough snack). One woman

passionately argued for a vending machine with sodas, while another

demanded breakfast dhokla (savoury snack popular in the region). Trina and

the chef confirmed that the women’s demands are mostly about everyday

things, for instance, changes to the menu, or introducing a new training

workshop and teacher. The management took these everyday demands very

seriously, and during my stay a vending machine and a machine for making

dhokla were ordered. Women celebrated these everyday victories as yet

another indication of the Doctor’s compassion.

I observed other ways that the management ensured the loyalty and

consent of women – by offering long term benefits for the gestational mother

and her family. For instance, management mentioned three such incentives,

subsidised medical treatment of children of former gestational mothers, a

cooperative bank where former gestational mothers can borrow at a reduced

interest rate, and part-time employment as a nanny or cleaner in the hostel.

Although none of the former gestational mothers I interacted with had

benefitted directly from either subsidized treatment or the coop, the rumours

Page 18 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

of such incentives were widespread. Being a “good mother-worker” (Pande

2010) , docile and disciplined, had its announced benefits, and many women

remained loyal. Other factors, external to the clinic regime, may well be

responsible for the diminished struggle. One of the immediate effects of the

proposed ban on commercial surrogacy is to take attention away from the

actual implementation of contracts and payment structure. In my decade of

fieldwork in this clinic, amount, forms (cash and/or in-kind gifts), negotiability

and timings of payment had been the essence of women’s demands for

change. The new policy focus on altruistic surrogacy has meant that all

dialogues around compensation have been curtailed.

In 2016 I conducted a focus group discussion with the gestational

mothers, with one specific question, “How has the ban affected you?” The

question was met with an uproar, some complaints were even levelled at me

as the returning researcher. Kailash, gestational mother for the third time

asked, “Why do you keep asking us what we think? How does it matter? The

ban is very wrong. They need to understand what this is. We all think that the

government needs to talk to us and understand. But everyone just asked

people in the upper echelons, if they had asked us, we would have told them

why we do it and what we get out of it! And people like you ask, but then

nothing happens”. Kailash expressed the frustration shared by most repeat

gestational mothers, of the ban being imposed on them without a thought as

to what would happen to their source of livelihood. Given all these

uncertainties, the only desire was to give birth, get their money and return

home. Informal organising and collective defiance is unlikely to be a priority

when there is no certainty of payment. As Ranjhan, a 29-year-old gestational

Page 19 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

mother, pregnant with twins for intended parents from Canada states, she had

had enough of this life of everyday “kantaal” (boredom) and future “maybes”,

The thing about surrogacy for me is that while the payment is

temporary, the child born in the world is here to stay. I don’t mind if the

party doesn’t remember me. I don’t mind if I can come back here again

or not. For now I just want to know that when I give birth, it will be worth

it. That they will come to take the baby and I will get my full money.

This life of maybe this, maybe that, is filling me up with too much

tension. And add to that this boredom. “Kantaal”. I am just bored out of

my mind. Just take me home.

Women, like Ranjhan, fear the uncertainty of not getting paid, of being

stranded with the baby, and of being arrested. This paradoxical state of

everyday boredom amidst an uncertain future may well be one of the reasons

for the dissipating energy and the diminished struggle for change.

From Made in India to Make in India

In this section of the paper, I zoom out from the local and analyse the effects

of the ban beyond the clinic. I argue that the ban has placed India in a

different position within the reproductive assembly line, in line with the

Government’s slogan and manufacturing policy shift from Made in India to

Make in India. The “Make in India” initiative was launched by Indian Prime

Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, with a focus on increasing the ease of foreign

companies in doing business in India. While the Made in India label in

Page 20 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

manufacturing would typically involve domestic factors of production, in order

to produce a brand of product that was produced from start to finish in India,

“Make in India” is government’s initiative to invite foreign investments in the

form of capital and technology, and in return give them the benefits from the

use of Indian labour and natural resources. In essence, the foreign

manufacturer is invited to bring their technology and capital and use India as a

convenient “assembling platform” (Jain 2016). Economists have debated on

the practices for a successful Make in India strategy, for instance

“”collaboration with the right local partner” that would allow “foreign

multinationals to rapidly achieve low-cost manufacturing advantages through

the existing facilities of the local partner,… …sourcing locally so as to quickly

and effectively respond to changes in market demand”, and finally to use India

as a space for testing innovations, and introducing new products for the global

market (Mudambi et al. 2017). How do these translate to the reproductive

sphere and the role of India in the reproductive assembly line before and after

the surrogacy ban? What effect does this have on the gestational mothers?

Before the ban, India was where intended parents could come to get

convenient “package deals”, an approach that was meant to protect the

clients’ interests from the moment they signed a contract until they received

the official birth certificate of the child. While seemingly convenient for all,

these deals meant that the state was ultimately responsible for the child borne

out of surrogacy and found itself in difficult situations when the various

“surrogacy scandals” erupted. With the current ban on commercial surrogacy,

India is slowly emerging as a different kind of player in the reproductive

assembly line – instead of providing Made in India babies and package deals,

Page 21 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

clinics are devising ways to make optimum use of their existing technologies

by establishing their clinics as the hub for embryology, creation of embryos

that can be exported to various countries, as and when necessary. Three of

the top surrogacy clinics, that shot into fame for providing surrogacy

packages, are now hubs for egg provision and embryology, with investments

and partners from global fertility enterprises in the U.S, Israel and Georgia.

Like Dr Asha’s clinic, mentioned in Field note 1, these former surrogacy clinics

have invested significant amount of money in building up the technology, the

clientele as well gamete banks in order to be part of this lucrative global

industry. In my conversation with managers and doctors of these clinics in

India, the doctors declared that they have enough national clients and will not

be affected adversely by the ban. Their worry, they insisted, was that the

livelihood of potential gestational mothers has been destroyed by the ban. But

despite this declaration, all three clinics have started diversifying their

portfolio.

Kalpa fertility clinic, Delhi, which prides itself for its cutting-edge

technology and team of international fertility specialists, and was once a busy

hub for transnational surrogacy, no longer mentions surrogacy as one of its

services offered. While the official focus is now on low cost IVF for national

clients, unofficially the clinic has emerged as the hub for egg retrieval and

embryology, for clients from all over the world. Two other surrogacy hubs, in

Delhi and Mumbai, have chosen similar paths, and diversified into either

gamete provision and/or embryology, for both national and international

clients. All have international embryologists, and partner with egg banks and

brokers in various parts of the globe, and with top global fertility enterprises.

Page 22 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

Their selling point is no longer a baby “Made in India”, a baby with a valid

passport, waiting to be carried home. Now the clinics focus on prenatal

development of gametes, fertilization, and development of embryos and

foetuses, that can be exported to destinations abroad.

While there are no laws around gamete provision in India, the Indian

Council of Medical Research has laid some guidelines for regulation of ART

clinics in India, which disallow use of sperm or eggs donated by a relative,

and make the clinic responsible for obtaining gametes and all information

regarding the gametes from appropriate banks. Clinics cannot be involved in

any commercial activity related to gamete provision or surrogacy (Widge and

Cleland, 2011). In 2019, a Malaysian national was arrested in India because

he clandestinely imported frozen embryos. The officials were concerned that

he intended to illegally use surrogacy services in a clinic in India

(Barnagarwala 2019). In the past, notifications by the Ministry of Commerce

and Industry as well as the Department of Health have attempted to ban both

the import and export of human embryos (Barnagarwala, 2016). The import of

human embryos has been moved from “restricted” to the “prohibited” category

(except for research purposes), and export is allowed on a case by case

basis. These clauses around export remain murky, allowing clinics to

establish a niche in egg retrieval, embryo fertilization and development. From

a gestational surrogacy hub, India is slowly evolving into an embryo-

fertilization node. Eggs are retrieved from Indian and global providers, these

are fertilized with the sperm of the intended father, and the resulting embryo is

exported to countries like the U.S., Ukraine, Georgia, and, until recently,

Cambodia, Nepal and Thailand, for implantation into waiting gestational

Page 23 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

mothers (Personal correspondence). In essence, by moving from brand Made

in India to Make in India, in the reproductive assembly line, India continues to

attract the investments and technologies required for assisted reproduction,

and yet does not need to deal with regulations, registrations, and the

associated moral, legal and political dilemmas.

From a visible destination of “one-stop surrogacy”, as India enters a

grey zone of pre-conception assemblage, what are the cross-border and

global ramifications? How does this effect the gestational mothers? One of the

most striking impacts of the nationally restrictive bans has been to push

women to travel to other countries in order to become a gestational mother.

The direct effect of this was seen for the first time in Kathmandu when “gay

surrogacy” was pushed out from India in 2013 to Nepal. This industry

flourished unnoticed before the earthquake brought media attention to the

‘scandal’ of gay Israeli men supposedly abandoning the Indian gestational

mothers and rescuing only their child after the earthquake. But these media

reports revealed another scandal, which ironically very few discussed: the

2013 ban on gay surrogacy made the Indian gestational mothers even more

vulnerable. In a Skype interaction with eight Indian women pregnant as

gestational mothers in Nepal, the women reported feeling abandoned, not by

the Israeli clients, but by the Indian government. The ban had pushed them to

make their living in Kathmandu instead of in Delhi, Anand or Mumbai. Their

status in Nepal was in a grey zone, and most either did not have money to

purchase a ticket home or did not possess passports. Others were reluctant to

return home under uncertainties, for instance, would the Indian authorities

sign release papers for a child commissioned by gay parents? There were

Page 24 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

uncertainties as to what would happen to the child they were gestating, their

contract and their payment even if they managed to return home.

Undoubtedly, gestational mothers’ precarity increases with crossing borders.

Without any international regulations, or connections with the broader ART

industry, the only effect of the ban has been to push the surrogacy industry

elsewhere and absolve the government from paying attention to critical

questions around globalization, reproductive justice and international law.

Transnational Surrogacy and Transnational Feminisms

The pluralization of feminism into feminisms is a practice that gained

momentum in late 1980s, a declaration that feminism is multiple, and not the “

sole preserve” of any one group (Miller 1999, 225). This term, and its

essence, has been critical for transnational feminist activists who have to

constantly grapple with the complexities of national/global, northern/southern,

activist/academic, ideological and practical differences and priorities. In this

concluding section I offer some ideas from transnational feminisms to imagine

an alternative to the current conversations around surrogacy.

The realization that globalization has increased the precarity of women

has urged feminists, health and reproductive health activists to seek out a

global strategy based on cross border alliances and solidarities. For instance,

the notion of strategic sisterhood, a North-South feminist alliance that could

allow Southern feminists to hold their governments accountable. Although

attractive, such solidarities have their limits as they are often forged around

Northern understanding of individual autonomy and women’s right, without

adequate contextualization of colonization and postcolonial intersections in

Page 25 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

the South (Ong 1996). Is gender inequality better fought within national

borders, with emphases on particular histories and national agendas or is

there scope for meaningful dialogues and alliances across borders? These

dilemmas and productive tensions of the larger transnational feminist world

has been mirrored within transnational surrogacy activism.

While some feminists and activists are convinced that surrogacy is an

extreme example of human trafficking and patriarchal exploitation, which

needs to be stopped at whatever cost, others have taken the route of

advocating for regulation and harm reduction. Unarguably the most vociferous

call for stopping surrogacy has come from Northern feminist lobbies, who see

surrogacy as a practice that not just exploits women but also is a form of

reproductive slavery and trafficking of children (for instance, see

http://www.cbc-network.org/2015/05/stop-surrogacy-now-launches/). Such

campaigns have not gone unquestioned. Here I quote from philosopher Alison

Bailey’s work, where she comments on the “distorting effects” and “moral

discursive colonialism” of the western media and Northern feminist thought on

this topic. According to Bailey, “Western feminists’ normative responses that

rely on feminist interpretations of liberal, Marxist/socialist, and radical political

values to make moral judgments about surrogacy, is problematic… Extending

Western moral frameworks to Indian surrogacy work raises the specter of

discursive colonialism along with concerns about how Western intellectual

traditions distort, erase, and misread non-Western subjects’ lived

experiences.” Information on surrogacy, Bailey believes, is tainted by

orientalist and colonial understanding of Third World women in constant need

of rescue and liberation. How much can Northern feminists really understand

Page 26 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

about the lived reality of gestational mothers in India, given the vast distance

between them – distance that is not just physical but also that of class,

language and culture? Others scholar have paid heed to this call for

“epistemic honesty” in their understanding of the logics of commercial

surrogacy in India. The rich and growing ethnographic scholarship on

surrogacy, as well as the interdisciplinary nature of the debates on surrogacy,

across multiple locations, may well be in response to the call for reflexivity and

honesty.

Transnational commercial surrogacy provides a novel opportunity to

rethink the meanings and possibilities in transnational feminist dialogue and

praxis: to highlight the intersectionality of oppressions, and “critique the

hegemony of a monolithic notion of Third World Women” (Swarr and Najar,

2010:5). A meaningful transnational feminist engagement around issues like

surrogacy needs to be attentive to the politics of differential locations, and the

relevance of intersectionality in the experiences of surrogacy, mentioned

above. At the same time, an analysis of surrogacy, over time and at different

scales, local and global, reveals that an issue like surrogacy cannot be

debated in isolation, within a country. Laws in one country has implications for

surrogacy, gamete provision, and the connected fertility industry in the region,

and in other parts of the global south. The rhetoric of protecting “our women

and children” has proven to be restrictive and insufficient for transnational

reproductive justice.

The discussions around positionality brings home another vital point:

gestational mothers cannot remain the mere objects of academic

theorizations and ethnographic knowledge production. The critical second

Page 27 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

step in addressing the complicated logics of transnational commercial

surrogacy, and effectively assert a broader vision of social justice, is to

recognize the economic and political voice of the gestational mothers

themselves. In the spirit of collaborative knowledge production and

transnational feminist praxis, there is a dire need to view the women as

participants in this neoliberal , so that they are the ones participating in these

dialogues, and not just being written about or being saved by concerned

feminist sisters, whether from the North or the South.

References:

Bailey, Allison. (2011) Reconceiving Surrogacy: Toward a Reproductive Justice

Account of Indian Surrogacy. Hypatia 26(4):.715-741.

Barnagarwala, Tabassum. 2016. Commercial surrogacy ban: ICMR gets

requests for embryo export, will frame policy after meeting all depts.

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/surrogacy-ban-

commercial-bill-icmr-embryo-export-policy-3095926/

Page 28 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

Barnagarwala, Tabassum. 2019. Case of the ‘imported’ embryo: the how, the

why, and what the law says

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/case-of-the-imported-embryo-the-

how-the-why-and-what-the-law-says-5647583/

Cunha, Darlena, 2014. The Hidden Costs of International Surrogacy,

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/12/the-hidden-costs-

of-international-surrogacy/382757/

Dangerfield, Katie. 2017. “Rent-a-womb’ crackdown: Australian woman on trial

for illegal surrogacy in Cambodia”.

https://globalnews.ca/news/3603353/australian-woman-trial-illegal-

surrogacy-business-cambodia/

DasGupta, Sayantani; Dasgupta, Shamita Das (eds.) 2014. Globalization and

Transnational Surrogacy in India: Outsourcing Life, Lanham: Lexington

Books.

Deomampo, Daisy. 2016 Transnational Reproduction: Race, Kinship and

Commercial Surrogacy in India. New York: NYU Press.

Doshi, V. 2016, January 2. ‘We pray that this clinic stays open’: India’s

gestational mothers fear hardship from embryo ban. The Guardian.

Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/03/india-

gestational mother- embryo-ban-hardship-gujarat-fertility-clinic

Fixmer-Orais, N. 2013. Speaking of Solidarity: Transnational Gestational

Surrogacy and the Rhetorics of Reproductive (In) Justice. Frontiers: A

Page 29 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

Journal of Women Studies 34 (3), 126-163

Guru, Gopal (2020). “Dalit women talk differently”, in Rathore, Singh Aakash

and Sunaina Arya (2020) Dalit Feminist Theory: A Reader, Routledge:

London

Gupta, JA. 2006. Reproductive biocrossings: Indian egg donors and

gestational mothers in the globalized fertility market. International

Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics. 5(1): 25-51.

Japanese baby gets birth certificate, 2008. https://www.thehindu.com/todays-

paper/tp-national/tp-otherstates/Japanese-baby-gets-birth-

certificate/article15278695.ece

Hodges, S and Rao, M (Ed). 2016. Public Health and Private Wealth

Stem Cells, Surrogates, and Other Strategic Bodies. Delhi: Oxford University

Press.

Huber, S, Karandikar S and Gezinski, L. 2017. Exploring Indian Gestational

mothers’ Perceptions of the Ban on International Surrogacy. Online first

available at

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0886109917729667

Kaufman, J. S. and S. A. Hall 2003 The Slavery Hypertension Hypothesis:

Dissemination and Appeal of a Modern Race Theory. Epidemiology

14(1):111–118.

Knecht, M. Klotz, M. and Beck, S. (ed). 2012. Reproductive Technologies as

Page 30 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

Global Form: Ethnographies of Knowledge, Practices and Transnational

Encounters.

Law Commission of India, 2009.

http://lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/reports/report228.pdf

Majumdar, Anindita. 2017. Transnational Commercial Surrogacy and the

(Un)Making of Kin in India, Oxford University Press.

Mohanty, C.T. 2003.. “Under Western Eyes' Revisited: Feminist Solidarity

through Anticapitalist Struggles,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and

Society 28:2 (2003): 499-535.

Mudambi, R, Saranga H and Schotter A. 2017. Mastering the Make-in-India

Challenge, MIT Sloan Management Review, Summer Issue

http://ilp.mit.edu/media/news_articles/smr/2017/58410.pdf

Deepa, V., Nadimpally, S., Bhatt, O. S. 2018. Surrogacy should be regulated,

but the new bill falls short. The Wire. https://thewire.in/rights/regulation-is-

necessary-but-the-surrogacy-bill-falls-short-on-several-counts

Nair, S. S., & Kalarivayil, R. (2018). Has India’s Surrogacy Bill Failed Women

Who Become Gestational mothers? ANTYAJAA: Indian Journal of Women

and Social Change, 3(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/2455632718778375

Najar N. 2015. India wants to ban birth surrogacy for foreigners. The New

York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/29/world/asia/india-

wants-to-ban-birth-surrogacy-for-foreigners.html

Page 31 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

Oksala, Johanna. 2019. Feminism against biocapitalism: Gestational

surrogacy and the limits of the labor paradigm. Signs 44 (4): 883–904.

Pande, Amrita. 2014. Wombs in labor: Transnational commercial surrogacy in

India . New York: Columbia University Press.

Pande, Amrita. 2016. Global reproductive inequalities, neo-eugenics and

commercial surrogacy in India. Current Sociology 64 (2): 244–58.

Ong Aihwa 1996. Strategic Sisterhood or Sisters in Solidarity? Questions of

Communitarianism and Citizenship in Asia. Indiana Journal of Global

Legal Studies , 4 (1): 107-135

Parry B, Ghoshal R Regulation of surrogacy in India: whenceforth now?

BMJ Global Health 2018;3:e000986.

Peters, Melanie. 2005. “Bargain Babies in the Mother City”. IOL News. August

20. Accessed at: http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/bargain-babies-

in-the-mother-city-1.251276.http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-

africa/bargain-babies-in-the-mother-city-1.251276

Qadeer, I. 2010. Benefits and threats of international trade in health: A case of

surrogacy in India. Global Social Policy, 10, 303–305.

Rao Mohan, 2019. APU Colloquium Series, Centre for Law and Policy research,

available at https://clpr.org.in/blog/apu-colloquium-series-surrogacy-in-

india-lecture-by-dr-m-rao/

Reddy, Sunita, Tulsi Patel, Malene Tanderup Kristensen

and Birgitte Bruun Nielsen. 2018. Surrogacy in India: Political and

Page 32 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

Commercial Framings. In Mitra, Schicktanz and Patel (ed). Cross-Cultural

Comparisons on Surrogacy and Egg Donation. Springer.

Rudrappa S. 2015. Discounted Life: The Price of Global Surrogacy in India.

New York: N. Y. Univ. Press

------------------2018. Reproducing Dystopia: The Politics of Transnational

Surrogacy in India, 2002–2015. Critical Sociology, 44(7–8), 1087–

1101. https://doi.org/10.1177/0896920517740616

Sama Resource Group for Women and Health

2017. Commercial Surrogacy: A Contested Terrain in the Realm of Rights and

Justice. Available at https://arrow.org.my/wp-

content/uploads/2016/12/Commercial-Surrogacy_Thematic-Paper.pdf

Sarojini, N., Marwah V. and Shanoi, A. 2011. Globalisation of birth markets: a

case study of assisted reproductive technologies in India, Global Health,

7 (27). Available at

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3169454/

Saravanan, S. 2018. A Transnational Feminist View of Surrogacy Biomarkets

in India. Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Srivastava, Roli, 2017. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-women-

surrogacy-idUSKBN1530FL

Stop Surrogacy Now campaign, The Centre for Bioethics and Cukture

Networks, Available at http://www.cbc-network.org/2015/05/stop-

Page 33 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

surrogacy-now-launches/

Swarr Amanda Lock and Richa Nagar.2010. Introduction.Critical Transnational

Feminist Praxis. Edited by Swarr Amanda Lock and Richa Nagar. SUNY

Press, Albany, New York.

Twine, France Winddance. 2015. Outsourcing the Womb: Race, Class and

Gestational Surrogacy in a Global Market. Routledge

Vora Kalindi 2012. Limits of “Labor”: Accounting for Affect and the Biological in

Transnational Surrogacy and Service Work. South Atlantic Quarterly

(2012) 111 (4): 681–700.

Widge, A and Cleland, J. 2011. Negotiating boundaries: Accessing donor

gametes in India. Facts, views & vision in ObGyn. 3. 53-60.

Notes

i There are two types of surrogacy: the first, called traditional surrogacy, involves the

surrogate being artificially inseminated with the intended father’s sperm. The second,

termed gestational surrogacy, is done through in vitro fertilization, in which the egg of

the intended mother or of an anonymous donor is fertilized in a petri dish with the

sperm of the intended father or of a donor and the embryo is transferred to the

surrogate’s uterus. All the cases in this study are gestational surrogacies; that is, the

surrogate has no genetic connection with the baby. The respondents in this study

refer to one another as ‘surrogate mothers’, and when I explained what the term

‘surrogate’ meant in English, most agreed that the description was fitting. In this

paper, however, I have chosen the term gestational-mothers over surrogates to avoid

Page 34 of 89

URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cjgs Email: CJGS-peerreview@journals.tandf.co.uk

Journal of Gender Studies

For Peer Review Only

disparaging the work done by the women, and as an attempt to recognize and label

the relationships forged by the women with the fetus and the baby.

ii In Sept 2014 Prime Minister Modi announced the Make in India slogan: “Sell

anywhere in the world but manufacture in India”: an attempt to replicate China’s

success in attracting foreign investments. Although this slogan was for the

manufacturing sector and investments, it resonates with my argument and findings in

the fertility industry and India’s (changing) role in the reproductive assembly line.

iii Although surrogacy practices in India vary significantly by clinic and region, I

choose to not reveal the region of my field site due to reasons of confidentiality and

research ethics.

Page 35 of 89