File pic: Harsh Vardhan, Union Health Minister
It was Controversy 2.0 for Health Minister Harsh Vardhan today who was forced to issue a clarification stating that he has not proposed a ban on sex education, despite stating that on his personal website.
In a statement this evening, the 59-year-old minister said, "Sex education is necessary, but without vulgarization" prompting an instant challenge from the opposition Congress. "I don't know what Dr.Harsh Vardhan means by vulgar sex education. Which school teaches that?" asked the party's Randeep Surjewala.
The Health Minister, who is in the US, was pilloried at home after the media flagged this comment on his website: "So-called 'sex education' to be banned. Yoga to be made compulsory."
That proposal is still listed on the site as part of his "educational vision for Delhi"; Harsh Vardhan was the BJP's candidate for chief minister in the December Delhi election.
Today, the minister, who is an ENT specialist, said he had expressed that view in response to the previous UPA government's proposed sex education programme for schools which, he said, had been opposed by several chief ministers, including some whose parties belonged to the ruling coalition.
"Crudity and graphic representation of culturally objectionable symbols as manifested in the UPA's so-called sex education programme cannot be called sex education," the minister's statement said this evening.
He also insisted that these were his personal views, but his critics did not make that distinction.
"Highly disturbed and disappointed by statements by a doctor health minister banning sex ed in schools. BJP at its regressive worst," tweeted author Chetan Bhagat.
The minister is yet to untangle himself from an earlier controversy this week over his comment about condoms. In an interview, he was reported as saying that the focus on condoms in AIDS-awareness campaigns sends a "wrong message that you can have any kind of illicit sexual relationship, but as long as you're using a condom, it's fine."
Dr Harsh Vardhan's corrigendum on Wednesday raised more eyebrows as he said, "Condoms promise safe sex, but the safest sex is through faithfulness to one's partner."