The second less talked about implication is that of race and religion. When a Muslim Gujarati woman delivers a baby for an NRI Patel from New Jersey or when a skinny Maharashtrian woman gives birth to a chubby South Korean baby, does it mean that, in an era of modern technologies, differentiations based on race, caste and religion are losing ground? Or in a less naïve tone, does it simply reify the importance of genes — people are ready to temporarily forget race, class, caste inequalities as long as they can ensure their genetic line continues?

And finally, to the least sensational and, perhaps, most critical debate. In a country where women have hardly any reproductive rights, where there is an extraordinarily high maternal mortality rate, where there is a history of mass sterilisation, where women’s bodies are used to try out new long-term contraception from the West, do we have the luxury of diverting resources towards new reproductive technologies like surrogacy? While poor women are “advised” on sterilisation, richer ones are “advised” on different ways to attain a biological child of their own. Sounds like we have come up with our very own version of (class) eugenics.

The writer, a doctoral student in the sociology department at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is working on an ethnography of commercial surrogacy in Gujarat

amritapande@gmail.com