Indian MP: Hindu women must have more babies


In a move analysts say was meant to provoke Muslims, an Indian MP named Sakshi Maharaj is calling for Hindu women to have at least four children "in order to protect the Hindu religion."
In India, 80 percent of the population is Hindu, and less than 14 percent is Muslim. The BBC's Geeta Pandey says that hard-line Hindus have been calling Muslim women "breeding machines" with the goal of overtaking the Hindu population.
Maharaj, a member of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), also made the news in December when he called Mahatma Gandhi's killer a patriot. Opposition Congress party spokesman Sanjay Jha called his latest comments "ludicrous and provocative."
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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