By John-Henry Westen
MURINGOOR, India, August 17, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Earlier this month LifeSiteNews.com sat down with Sunny Kattukaran, the leader of a pro-life group in India known as Trust God (Pro-Life) Ministry.
Firstly, Kattukaran explained the group’s evolution from anti-abortion to pro-life, from a focus on opposing abortion to a focus on promoting openness to God’s gift of life. He explained that even in his own family, that struggle was present. After a few years of marriage he and his wife were blessed with two children. But then, recalls Kattukaran, his wife was pressured by her family not to have more children, even to use sterilization.
Although he wanted to have more children he did not insist, but also encouraged his wife to refrain from sterilization. He explained that after a few years the children were attending school and his wife began to have nightmares and she felt she may need psychological counselling. Kattukaran however encouraged her to be open to life. Despite family pressures she consented and with her third child came an understanding of the beauty of life and God’s providence in taking care of His little ones. The family is now blessed with four children and prays to be blessed with another child even though his wife is already in her mid forties.
Beyond the first recorded command of God to man “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28) there are many practical reasons for being open to life, says Kattukaran.
He explains how the economy in the southern state of Kerala is now suffering due to an ageing population and a lack of population growth which has farmers left with surplus crops in their fields. To those who suggest overpopulation of India, Kattukaran replies that the most recent statistics show India with a population density of 313 people per square km.“Whereas in Singapore it is 6926 per square km, and in Hong Kong it is 6901 – and for them it is good,” he said.“But for India we are at ground zero. They say that we are poor, no, we are rich.”
Kattukaran says that Western ideology on population control has affected Indian families but they have also been coerced to keep their population down. He explained, “the Americans, the UN and other funding agents, when they release some funds as loans they ask our statistics on birth control, and insist on family planning criteria, only then do they pump money.”
“Our politicians,” he says, “take that money and promise” to carry out the population control agenda, some believing falsely that it is for the benefit of the people.
Kattukaran and his group point to contradictions even in textbooks regarding the so-called ‘need’ for population control. One school text referred to by one of Kattukaran’s colleagues records in one chapter that India produces three times as many grains and six times as many fruits as can be consumed by its population. Yet, another chapter says population control is necessary for sustainability in terms of food production.
The researchers at Trust God Ministry note that corruption both at the local and international level are artificially keeping India economically unstable and dependent. Kattukaran explained that from 2002-2004 India exported 41 million tons of food as cattle feed at a meagre cost. But under the UN’s GATT (General Agreement on Trade and Tarriffs) they were compelled to import the same amount of food. However it was imported at seven times the cost.
Trust God Ministry is looking to break the negative cycle of depopulation. They are bringing families which have been open to life into public view, demonstrating how God has blessed them and provided for their large families.