In my school and college days I was an ardent supporter of sex education. At that time it seemed that to deny sex education was to deny human rights. It was important not only to help fight aids, but also to bring more freedom in India around sexuality. 

But then I slowly started to see that whatever was happening in the name of sex education was not really what was needed. There were other agendas behind giving sex education than was openly acknowledged. Today, I feel that sex education in India has gone completely in the wrong direction, and is giving rise to several social ills, that weren't there at all in the first place.

There are several issues involved here. First of all, sex education seems to have been hijacked by the forces of westernization, whose only aim to give sex education seems to be to implant western values in our culture, without any concern to our own sensibilities. They start with the notion that Indian values are inherently trash and outdated and that the Western values are superior. But I question that assumption.

I am not saying that the Western values are all bad. And I'm not saying that our values are always good. I am not for keeping the harmful elements of our own value system, and I am also not opposed to borrowing from the West what is good about them. But, this cultural exchange is a very sensitive process, and before we take on a foreign value system, we have to study it carefully, discuss it in our own society thoroughly and then if there is a need to change, then we should take care not to just copy the values blindly, but adapt them to our own circumstances, needs and aspirations as a society.

But what is happening is exactly the opposite. They are thrusting down negative social values relentlessly through the media, and other forces of Westernization, and the sex education has just become another tool for these forces to carry on their agenda. They are so conceited, and have such blind faith in the West that they think that anything that comes from the advanced nations has to be of immense value.

We are being deluged by Western value system and life-styles through TV which is affecting our young by invading our living rooms. It all started when the Indian government decided to open the media to foreign players, who came with enormous financial, technological and political power. We Indians did not have time to save whatever was positive about our own culture, from this deluge. We have lost a lot of that ancient wisdom that had been guiding us. And a lot of negative ways of life, and those that may suit the west but are harmful for us, have been implanted in our midst so deeply that to weed it out will take ages.

Anything foreign when implanted in another environment can be disastrous. Like the exotic pine trees that were planted in Kumaon and Garhwal by the British, spread like wild fire and destroyed the local flora and fauna and played havoc with the fragile eco-system. Or like a particular kind of fish that was brought by the Europeans to Australia and thrown into local rivers, that soon started to prey on the unprepared fish and other species dwelling in the rivers since time immemorial. They were just not adapted to defend themselves from this foreign predator. And in a few years, the entire eco-system collapsed, as everything is dependant on one another. Something similar is happening with our value system and life-styles.

For sex-education to be useful, it has to