LEGALISED COMMERCIAL SURROGACY AND ECONOMIC NEOLIBERALISM IN INDIA: THE CONTEXT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

The study throws light on the industry of commercial surrogacy (hereinafter referred as CS) and its various unexplored dynamics and angularities in the city of Delhi, which is the capital of India and hence, may be considered as a representative study for the CS regime in India. The study analyses the socioeconomic status of surrogate mothers vis a vis the commissioning couples and the deep entrenched socio economic inequalities embedded in the structure of the society facilitating boom of the industry as the prime reason. This paper mainly places the CS in human rights framework at the core of the discussion. Firstly, the paper concludes that CS which is a form of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) is a bliss, if used ethically and for altruistic purposes. However, it may prove a bane and can create serious crises of right to life and human dignity, especially when it operates for commercial purposes that too in unethical and unregulated informal framework. Unethical and unregulated informal framework in the context has potential to pose serious crises of human rights for both, the surrogate mother and the prospective child. Neither India nor does the international human rights law has any normative legal framework to regulate the regime of CS. The paper contextualizes CS, particularly in the neoliberal economic paradigm which India has adopted ever since 1991 and pursuing rigorously, and thereby forges links between the exploitation of surrogate mothers vis a vis economic liberalization. The analysis of the statistics of the study provides a fair idea about the functioning of the regime of CS and forces us to rethink about the idea of legalization of CS. The main hypothesis of the paper is that CS is an obvious offshoot of the ideology of economic neoliberalism and free market operating in Indian society with deep entrenched structural inequalities resulting into chronic and acute mass poverty. India has indirectly legalized CS through various judicial pronouncements. The Recebido em: 12/12/2018 Aceito em: 15/12/2018 * Associate professor of law and director, center for human rights and subaltern studies National law university delhi (india)