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Title Pages
Transnational Commercial Surrogacy and the

(Un)Making of Kin in India
Anindita Majumdar
Print publication date: 2018

Print ISBN-13: 9780199474363
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: April 2018
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199474363.001.0001
Title Pages
Anindita Majumdar
(p.i) Transnational Commercial Surrogacy and the (Un)Making of Kin in India

(p.ii)
(p.iii) Transnational Commercial Surrogacy and the (Un)Making of Kin in India
(p.iv)
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Dedication

Anindita Majumdar

Print ISBN-13: 9780199474363
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199474363.001.0001
Dedication
Anindita Majumdar
(p.v) To my parents (p.vi)
Page 1 of 1
Tables and Figures

Anindita Majumdar

Print ISBN-13: 9780199474363
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199474363.001.0001
(p.ix) Tables and Figures

Anindita Majumdar
Tables
1.1 IVF and IVF-Surrogacy Costs in US, UK, and India 25
5.1 List of Respondents (Foreign Nationals) Who Had/Were Going to Have
Children through the Transnational Commercial Gestational Surrogacy
Arrangement during the Fieldwork 141
Figures
1.1 Average Expenditure Involved in Commissioning a Surrogacy
Arrangement—Culled from Field and Newspaper Reports (2010–13) 23
1.2 The Process of TCGSA 29
2.1 Components of the Commercial Gestational Surrogacy Agreement 41
3.1 Collage of Indian Matrimonial Advertisements in Newspapers for
Brides Wanted 88 (p.x)
3.2a–c Advertisements for Surrogate Mothers and Egg Donors in Hindi
Women’s Monthly Magazines 89
3.3 ‘Eligible’ and ‘Ineligible’ Wombs in Altruistic Gestational Surrogacy 93
5.1 How to Get Your Baby Back Home in ‘3 Easy Steps’ 143
6.1 Philip and Trent’s Children 181
Page 1 of 1
Acknowledgements

Anindita Majumdar

Print ISBN-13: 9780199474363
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199474363.001.0001
(p.xi) Acknowledgements
Anindita Majumdar
I remember my first meeting with Trent and Philip in a south Delhi

neighbourhood in 2010. Their warmth was infectious, their joy evident, and their
desire to share their story with me made me embark on my ethnography with
more confidence. Over the years, we have stayed in touch—primarily through
Facebook, where I have seen their three children become young school-goers.
This book concludes with the story of Philip and Trent’s children, as do the many
other children mentioned in my ethnographic study, who are going to school and
becoming engaging youngsters. Their parents’ pride is obvious and infectious; I
feel like I am part of their upbringing, thanks to the shared stories and my
continuous communication with parents who opt for surrogacy. It is with a deep
sense of gratitude that I would like to thank all these parents who gave me
access to their lives, their children, and their personal stories. The same goes for
my anonymous surrogates who were equally affectionate, even though at times
the sadness in their eyes would tell another story, but without whom this tale of
making and unmaking kin would have been incomplete.
And yet this ethnographic study was ‘conducted’ in clinics, in spaces of medicine
and commerce, in embassies, and in lawyers’ chambers. Everywhere the in vitro
fertilization (IVF) specialist, the (p.xii) surrogacy lawyer, the bureaucrat in the
consul office, the journalist and the documentary filmmaker, and most
importantly, the surrogacy agent who traversed many spaces—of the clinic, the
corporate office, and the local neighbourhood—came to my aid. They helped me
get access, circumvent obstacles, and ask questions. Unfortunately, I cannot
name them, but my thank you to all of them.
Page 1 of 4
Acknowledgements
Since 2010, when my guide gently nudged me towards commercial surrogacy, I

have been in debt of her intellectual and emotional support. Ravinder Kaur
guided me towards a fruitful combination of my twin interests in kinship and
medical anthropology. Her support of my writing and intellectual pursuit at the
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD) has been absolutely essential.
There are others who guided me through my initial journey in academia and
through the writing of this book: Farhana Ibrahim, who encouraged me to write,
giving critical feedback and support; Rita Brara, my teacher when I was
completing my masters at the Delhi School of Economics (DSE), University of
Delhi, who continued to give valuable inputs on my doctoral committee; Mohan
Rao at the School of Community Medicine and Social Health, Jawaharlal Nehru
University (JNU), New Delhi, who showed steadfast conviction that research on
commercial surrogacy is topical and relevant; Rajni Palriwala, my MPhil
supervisor at the DSE, who taught me how to write; Amrit Srinivasan at IITD,
who believed that my research had potential and value; Sanil V., also at IITD,
who pushed me to problematize kinship by reading works by Pierre Clastres and
Judith Butler.
My intellectual growth is, to a large extent, a token of gratitude to both the DSE,
University of Delhi, and to the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences,
IITD. Both these institutions helped me grow and understand my limitations and
valued my research at critical moments. At DSE, Yasmeen Arif and Janaki
Abraham were great teachers; Amrita Ibrahim was a great collaborator and
critic; and at IITD Suman Sigroha, Paro Mishra, Gurmeet Kaur, (p.xiii)
Mahendra Shahare, Lalita Sharma, and Junaid Hamdani cheered me on through
the five intense years of research. Sarbeswar Sahoo, Reetika Khera, Simona
Sawhney, and Arudra Burra at IITD have given encouragement and support even
after the PhD.
The Indian Institute of Technology Delhi had supported my research through a

doctoral grant, and also facilitated travel to conferences and workshops abroad.
The libraries at IITD, DSE, Teen Murti Bhavan, and Sahitya Akademi have come
to my rescue in the course of my research and writing.
Shalini Grover has been a wonderful academic colleague, guiding me through

my PhD by being part of my intellectual conversations. Helle Rydstrom at the
University of Lund, Sweden, found merit in my research and has encouraged me
during my post-PhD stint at the Department of Gender Studies at Lund. Matilda
Svensson Chowdhary, Maria Tonini, and Sara Goodman have been fantastic
hosts and academic collaborators at Lund. I have been in conversation with
fellow researchers, Holly Donahue-Singh and Daisy Deomampo, since we came
to know of our shared interests in infertility and South Asia.
Page 2 of 4
Acknowledgements
Gaining access to key respondents and sites in the field was initially a Herculean
task. It was primarily thanks to the following people that I was able to bypass
‘gatekeepers’ or simply gain entry: Payal Kumar, Aimee Ginsburg, Srividya
Rajaram, Jitin Chadha, Meghna Aggarwal, Simran Chadha, and Aparna Gupta.
Their support and recommendation has been invaluable in establishing rapport.
My special thanks to the Sama Resource Group for Women and Health, whose
pioneering work has informed my doctoral and postdoctoral research in assisted
reproductive technologies and commercial surrogacy. At Sama, Sarojini
Nadimpally and Deepa V. continue to be mentors and collaborators; and Vrinda
Marwah, Nazia Hassan, Prachi Joshi, and Vaibhao Ambhore as my post-PhD
companions have contributed much to the writing of this book. (p.xiv)
To Gayatri Koshy and Chandan Bose, a heartfelt thank you. They have been my
intellectual companions since 2001 and guided me through the madness of
writing, thinking, and critiquing. Their support, even though in different parts of
the globe, has been invaluable. And thanks to Vineeta Rai for encouraging me to
aim high.
At Manipal, where this book began to take its final shape, thanks to Sundar
Sarukkai, Nikhil Govind, and Gayathri Prabhu. Mrinal Kaul helped me focus and
write the final drafts as we talked of language and anthropology over many cups
of coffee. Varun Bhatta and Asim Siddiqui stood steadfast, coming to my aid
whenever asked for. Thanks also to Dr Pratap Kumar for giving me access to the
process of in vitro fertilization at his clinic that helped me understand the
medical process in its entirety. And to Dr Praveena Pai who helped me see the
ethical questions that medical practitioners face.
I cannot forget to thank my students: from Jesus and Mary College, University of
Delhi, where I began my teaching career, to engineering undergraduates at IITD,
and finally to the masters’ students at Manipal Centre for Philosophy and
Humanities—they have provoked me to think constantly and engage with
anthropology anew.
Last, but not least, without the constant and unwavering support of Archana and
Gautam Majumdar, this book would not have seen the light of day. Their
involvement was complete: from conversations to facilitating my research and
writing in an environment that was comfortable and welcoming.
Mayabhushan Nagvenkar has seen this book through. He has pushed me to

write and think through the fieldwork and later. His constant questions about my
research have made it better and more relevant. Thank you.
Anindita Majumdar
Hyderabad
Page 3 of 4
Acknowledgements
2017
Page 4 of 4
Introduction

Anindita Majumdar

Print ISBN-13: 9780199474363
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199474363.001.0001
Introduction
Transnational Surrogacy and the Making of Kin
Anindita Majumdar
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780199474363.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords

Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the practice of transnational surrogacy by
looking at its scope, brief history, and the academic research on it. The chapter
also gives an overview of the major theoretical debates that the book engages
with, along with an overview of the chapters.
Keywords: reproduction, law, kinship, processual kinship, transnational trade, body trade, biology
In an air-conditioned conference room in one of the many significant

government buildings in New Delhi, a high-level meeting is convened to discuss
the draft legislation on assisted reproductive technologies in India in October
2015. In reality, the discussion is on transnational commercial surrogacy.
Representatives from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR—the author
of the draft legislations and its many versions), the famous Nayna Patel (the
doctor from Anand, Gujarat, the self-declared pioneer of commercial surrogacy
in India), civil society activists, feminists, and academicians crowd the room
along with representatives from the different state women’s commissions. There
is anxiety at many levels, for whispers regarding a ‘ban’ circulate within the
room. The central government is keen to regulate the ‘burgeoning’ commercial
surrogacy ‘industry’ to protect the rights of poor women who become surrogates
and the children who may be abandoned by foreign couples in case of problems
with citizenship, or worse, disability.1 The draft bill circulates for discussion, (p.
2) critique, and debate; and it becomes evident that the anxieties are not
unfounded. The government is thinking of a ‘ban’ in ‘hiring of our women’s
Page 1 of 24
Introduction
wombs’ by foreigners, and may also eventually ban commercial surrogacy

altogether in favour of altruistic surrogacy. The shock and discomfort is evident,
and for a brief moment the medical fraternity seeks allegiance with feminists
(both of whom are otherwise at loggerheads over the rights of the surrogates) to
curb this alarming development. The claims to protect the rights of the
surrogate are espoused by both the doctors and the feminists and suddenly the
draft law is not in focus anymore, as state representatives claim that commercial
surrogacy as a practice is socially unacceptable and should be controlled. One
government functionary calmly states: ‘I support the state’s desire to ban
commercial surrogacy. Our culture has in-built mechanisms to tackle infertility.
If a woman is unable to reproduce, the family steps in—often the sister-in-law
would become a surrogate. We should have faith in the Indian family system to
tackle the problem of infertility.’
It is the protection of social relationships within a practised milieu of tradition

and modernity that later prompted the government to file an affidavit with the
Supreme Court of India asking it to regulate commercial surrogacy so that it
may be available to only ‘needy Indian couples’. Very soon after the
aforementioned meeting, the Government of India suggested in its affidavit that
foreign couples be banned from contracting commercial surrogacy
arrangements in India.2 Earlier in 2013, in a memo from the Ministry of Home
Affairs, Government of India, medical visas were made mandatory for foreigners
coming into India to contract a surrogacy arrangement, and entry was restricted
to married heterosexual couples.3
The Draft Regulation of Assisted Reproductive Technologies Bill (by ICMR) has
itself been through many avatars (2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015)—but only two
of them have been circulated for public opinion and inputs. Though the Bill has
sought to regulate the practice of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs)
such as (p.3) in vitro fertilization (IVF),4 the conversation has always been on
surrogacy. It has been about the surrogate and her rights, as well as about the
idea of parenthood itself.
In the intermingling of technology, sex, and the family lies the complicated
terrain of transnational commercial gestational surrogacy in India. The draft law
on technology regulates bodies, relationships, and eligibility rather than the use
of the technology. This is telling because it points towards the ways in which
commercial surrogacy poses foundational questions about how we think and
assume kinship to be what it is. Commercial surrogacy disrupts the taken-for-
granted nature of our intimate relationships, through technological interventions
in the form of IVF, and by involving third-party participation in the form of egg
and sperm donors, and the gestate.
Page 2 of 24
Introduction
In addition, even though these questions have been the focus of conversations in
the academic research in the US and UK, in India the transnational nature of the
commercial gestational surrogacy arrangement has disrupted many ideas of
being and belonging.
The Cast of Characters

At Surrogacy and Fertility Centre, one of the popular IVF surrogacy clinics in
south Delhi that was part of my ethnographic study in absentia,5 a majority of its
foreign clientele came through the recommendations of other couples who had
successfully had babies through surrogacy at this clinic. ‘Dr Rupa’ (pseudonym),
the owner–IVF specialist, advertised her clinic effectively by ‘posting’ details of
the number of children born through commercial surrogacy at her clinic (and
their parents’ nationality) on social networking websites and on her blog. In
2015, she was also part of an international surrogacy conference in Australia
where she delivered a lecture, which was posted on her blog. Her participation
was facilitated by a group of Australian gay fathers who had had babies through
the clinic. Until recently, one of the fathers (p.4) had also acted as a liaison
between prospective couples wanting to enter the surrogacy arrangement in
India, and Surrogacy and Fertility Centre.
However, such quasi-formal arrangements were not feasible with the growing
demand for commercial surrogacy amongst Indian and foreign couples. This is
why professional surrogacy agencies began to enter the expanding ‘surrogacy
market’. ‘Building Futures’ (pseudonym) was one of these surrogacy agencies. It
was part of a global conglomerate that sourced egg donors and surrogates from
Europe, India, and elsewhere where surrogacy was legal. The company was
headquartered in Georgia in the erstwhile Eastern Bloc and had branches in
Southeast Asia, besides India. The agency was an ‘intermediary’ connecting
couples to clinics, clinics to surrogates, and surrogates to clinics and couples. It
maintained a database of egg donors and women wanting to be surrogates. The
director of the agency, Andrea from Georgia, spoke of how Building Futures ‘[I]s
information network ... we have IVF, surrogacy and egg donation in Armenia,
Georgia, Ukraine, India ... currently we are heading to Europe ... we plan to
open our own IVF clinic ... and ... a European clinic …’ With approximately four
to five cases every month seeking surrogacy and IVF treatment, the agency was
doing well in India—by mid-2012 (a year after the above interview) they had
already opened an independent IVF clinic in a busy New Delhi neighbourhood.
Building Futures, India, coordinated with their other worldwide branches to
source Caucasian egg donors—in great demand amongst foreign couples coming
to India to have babies. These donors would be brought to India on an all-
expenses-paid trip to donate their eggs. The company organized for their
accommodation, travel, medical appointment, and translators in case they did
not know English. The preferred egg donor was below 30 years of age and
married with one living child.
Page 3 of 24
Introduction
One of the Czech egg donors had come to India to meet the commissioning
couple Daniel and James. They were exploring the (p.5) surrogacy option
through their agents Building Futures and another Delhi clinic Miracle Babies.
In September 2011, after hiring the Caucasian egg donor, they were waiting for
a suitable surrogate. Daniel and James were relieved that they had contracted
their surrogacy arrangement (with the agency and the clinic) before the new law
in Australia, which prohibited commercial surrogacy arrangements overseas,
came into effect.
The idea of a suitable surrogate was a notion constructed by IVF specialists,

couples, and agents. Renu was one of them—she was docile, obedient, clean, and
meticulous about her medication. She had given birth to a boy for a Black British
couple in 2010. Renu had heard about surrogacy from one of her neighbours
who had shown her a newspaper advertisement asking for women willing to
surrogate a baby. In Allahabad, the city in the north Indian state of Uttar
Pradesh where Renu lived, surrogacy and IVF were unheard of. After seeking
the advice of the local gynaecologist, she had undergone a successful surrogacy
at Metro IVF clinic—a clinic in central Delhi run by a charismatic IVF specialist
and his gynaecologist wife. Back home, Renu’s family consisted of her husband
who was a chauffeur, and her two children. She had also adopted the infant son
of her deceased sister. Renu lived in a partitioned unit of her husband’s joint
family household and had managed to keep her work as a surrogate mother a
secret from the rest of the household. During the pregnancy, she had availed of
the option of living in hired accommodation provided by the clinic, where she
shifted in the third month of her pregnancy with her children and husband. In
2011, she was desperately looking to enter another surrogacy arrangement.
These are some of the ‘characters’ from the ethnography that form the ‘global
reproductive assemblages’ occupying the terrain of fertility tourism and
transnational commercial gestational surrogacy in India. ‘A global assemblage is
a collection of heterogeneous elements characterized by contingency, structure,
organization, and change that reflect the manifestations, tensions, (p.6) and
contradictions intrinsic to global processes’ (Browner and Sargent 2011: 9 citing
Ong and Collier), but is nonetheless also very much embedded within ‘local
biologies’ (Lock 2001) and morals that ultimately guide and make new forms of
global life and processes. In that sense, ARTs, clinics, people, and relationships
configured in transnational commercial gestational surrogacy are fitting
examples of ‘how the “local” confronts the “global”: how local cultural factors
reshape and sometimes constrain how global technologies are to be
used’ (Inhorn 2002: 266).
The Transnational Commercial Gestational Surrogacy Arrangement (henceforth

TCGSA) places different sets of people in an intimate, yet distant relationship.
Each of the participants in the arrangement is unrelated to each other, not only
in terms of kinship ties in the conventional sense, but also in terms of being
Page 4 of 24
Introduction
socially distant. The social distance is exacerbated in case of the class and
cultural differences between the participants. This plays out especially in the
relationships between the surrogate mother and the intended parents, and
between the doctors/agents and the surrogate. In this book, I examine how
people occupied multiple intimate relationships across sociocultural spaces
giving TCGSA its peculiar character.
Conflicted Kinship: Sex, Biology, and the Social

In the different forms of surrogacy—especially genetic and gestational—the
interface with the technology in creating a child for those unable to have it
through sexual intercourse is evident. Technological innovations have facilitated
asexual reproduction/ procreation, involving more than the two people required
to create and birth a child. Thus, the different types of surrogacy involve people
in relationships of intimacy and obligation due to the technological interventions
that bring them together. While science and technology are able to provide
alternatives to making kin in ways other than the conventional means of sex,
marriage, (p.7) friendship, and obligation, the real question is our desire for
biological kin. Born from our bodies, connected to our bodies, connected to ties
of biological intimacy—we understand kin and kinship primarily through biology.
Contemporary biology is at the cusp of new discoveries, reconstructions, and
ideas—but the sociological–anthropological questions that come to mind are
regarding the ways in which biology is perceived, understood, and constructed.
So, when anthropologists speak of de-biologizing, re-biologizing, and
reconstructing biology (Franklin 2003) what do they mean? Does it mean that
biology as we know it has changed completely? If it has, what is biology in its
‘pure form’? Is it the gene? Or is it the fusion of egg and sperm? Or is it the
DNA? What is biology?
The metanarrative of biology continues to inform the contemporary study of

kinship in anthropology. Exploring its sociocultural formulation has been the
focus of many ethnographic studies and analysis. This book explores kinship
from the vantage point of the new kinship studies (Franklin and McKinnon 2001)
that emerged in reply, and critique to Schneider’s study of kinship in American
society (Schneider 1968; Yanagisako and Delaney 1995). Through the analysis of
kinship as it is understood and practiced in commercial gestational surrogacy in
India, the attempt here is to explore the ways in which the anthropology of
kinship has analysed the question of biology in interpersonal relationships.
For some time now ‘reassembling’ the social (Latour 2005) by unpacking biology
has been a favourite project of sociocultural anthropologists and sociologists, as
is evident in the study of kinship. ‘[T]he biological and the social are coproduced
and dialectically reproduced … the material and the social are both contingent
…’ (Lock 2001: 484, emphasis in original). Thus, the ‘cultural-
biologicals’ (Goodman 2013: 361) are moving, multiple biologies that are
understood, constructed, and reconfigured within the sphere of multiple global–
Page 5 of 24
Introduction
local cultural contexts. In anthropological research findings the cultural-

biologicals are ultimately resolved and tied together ‘neatly’ in what appears to
be (p.8) a conflicted negotiation between nature and culture, biology and
sociality, and nature and nurture. Thus, even though ‘nature’ is fractured into
blood–biology–gene–DNA, ultimately these elements of nature are resolved in
their multiplicity. It may be in social perceptions regarding kin and non-kin (Dow
2009; Edwards 2009), in the idea of risk that connects and disconnects relatives
through diseases (Featherstone et al. 2006; Finkler 2001; Gibbon 2007), and in
practices of reclaiming ‘strangers’ as one’s own (Carsten 2000b; Modell 1986;
Sharp 2006)—biology provides the ideological apparatus par excellence in the
study of kinship. Here, fictive kin are represented as fictions of the ‘real’ thing—
biological kin. This is also true to some extent for relatedness and ideas of kin-
making through ‘alternative’ folk ideas such as locality (Lambert 2000a, 2000b),
food (Carsten 1995), and friendship and choice (Weston 1991).
Thus, when researching a practice of ‘making kin’ through assisted reproductive

technologies, one must place biology at the centre. This is not just ‘nature’ in the
classical–anthropological sense, it is truly the pursuit of ties of blood, genes, and
connections. Kinship has constructed biology in ways that connect it to the social
and vice versa. In addition, the practice of commercial gestational surrogacy
engages with biology at many levels.
To begin with, the possibilities included in commercial gestational surrogacy are

a unique starting point itself.
1. In case of a heterosexual couple where the female partner is unable to

carry a pregnancy—the eggs may belong to her, the sperm to her male
partner, and the Indian surrogate carries the pregnancy.
2. In case of a heterosexual couple where the female partner is unable to
gestate and contribute her eggs to the pregnancy—the eggs may be taken
from an anonymous donor (Indian/White or any other race) or a relative,
the sperm belongs to the male partner, and the Indian surrogate carries
the pregnancy. (p.9)
3. In case both partners in a heterosexual relationship are unable to
contribute eggs or sperm—there are anonymous/known sperm and egg
donors and the Indian surrogate.
4. In case of a homosexual couple (more often a male homosexual couple)
—one partner’s sperm (even though both may have contributed), may
fuse with the egg of an anonymous/known donor (belonging to different
racial and ethnic configuration), and the Indian surrogate.
5. The single woman/man contributes her/his egg/sperm as the
commissioning individual along with the sperm/egg of known/anonymous
donor and the Indian surrogate.
Page 6 of 24
Introduction
The combination of gametes from foreign/Indian couples/individuals, anonymous

donors of eggs and sperm, and Indian gestational surrogates—as well as a global
technology operated through Indian medical expertise—has fuelled the need for
renewed enquiry into the notion and practice of kinship. The intersections of
race, culture, class, and governments in the commercial gestational surrogacy
arrangement in India have led to unique negotiations with kinship and family.
While disruptive of the traditional role and identity of motherhood—gestational
surrogacy creates avenues for renegotiating these same categories. How do we
then begin to understand and study commercial gestational surrogacy as a new
form of engagement with kinship? How is biology configured in intimate
relationships within a practice that engages peoples, borders, bodies, genes, and
technologies across a transnational canvas? Where else in contemporary
practices of ‘kin-making’ (besides transnational adoption) are gametes of foreign
couples ‘incubated’ in Indian wombs?
In the documentary Made in India (directed by Haimowitz and Sinha 2010) the
plot unfolds across the global–local spaces of Texas, USA and Dharavi, Mumbai,
India. These two spaces occupied by the American commissioning couple Lisa
and Brian Switzer, and Aasia Khan, the Indian gestational surrogate (p.10)
mother, respectively, are mediated through ‘liminal third spaces’6 (Bharadwaj
and Glasner 2009) of the IVF clinic and the reproductive tourism agency.
Rotunda, the Mumbai clinic that administers the treatment and commissions the
arrangement on behalf of the Switzers; and Planet Hospital, the agency based in
the US traverse the ‘glocal’ relationships that emerge in the transnational
commercial surrogacy arrangement. The documentary highlights the movement
between spaces, people, relationships, and governments as they come together
in TCGSA.
In such a context, as foreign, heterosexual, and gay couples form a significant

section of the commissioning couples having babies through commercial
gestational surrogacy in India (especially vis-à-vis the ethnography discussed in
this book), I wish to question the idea of an emerging diaspora of families that
‘investigates what might be gained by reconceptualizing diaspora not in
conventional terms of ethnic dispersion, filiation and biological traceability, but
rather in terms of queerness, affiliation and social contingency’ (Eng 2003: 4).
Here, I suggest that TCGSA in India actually involves a resurrection of ideas of
biological traceability, while at the same time invoking ideas of social
contingency especially when seen from the perspective of love and care. This
involves a fascinating and dynamic interaction between interpersonal
relationships and reproductive technologies. Thus, I posit that TCGSA is fertile
ground for the examination of cross-cultural engagements with kinship and
technology. The blending of Euro-American notions of kinship, biomedical ideas
of kin and ‘kinning’ (Howell 2003) with South Asian ideas and practices of
kinship and relatedness leads to important questions. What are the mechanisms
by which kinship is understood and practiced in a comparative and cross-
Page 7 of 24
Introduction
cultural milieu? How does biology and the social come to be configured within
kinship in TCGSA? Or do they become redundant? How can anthropology
develop a more nuanced notion of interpersonal relationships in a global,
transnational setting? More importantly, are we in the realm of global
transnational relationships? (p.11)
‘Transnational relationships’ have been the focus of many studies, each pointing
towards the emergence of intimacy across borders—bound by and yet released
from the confines of border identity. Included within such relationships are those
of transnational marriages (Constable 2003; Faier 2007); transnational adoption
(Dorow 2006; Howell 2001, 2003; Yngvesson 2010); and transnational care work
(Parreñas 2001). In each of these engagements, different cultures intermingle,
collide, and navigate bureaucratic hurdles of acceptance and delegitimation. The
intimate in such an understanding undergoes upheavals and redefinitions. The
ambivalence exhibited in adopting a child from China by Norwegian or American
parents is seen in the efforts to assimilate the child without divorcing her from
the culture of her birth (Dorow 2006; Howell 2003). Similarly, in wanting to
retain the conjugal tie built with White American men, Filipino women are filled
with anxiety while waiting for their American visas (Constable 2003). Again,
Filipino women working as care workers in Rome and California try to keep alive
their children’s love for them through gifts and money (Parreñas 2001). In case
of transnational commercial gestational surrogacy, this is felt through the
navigation of different cultures in facilitating the birth of the child (Deomampo
2013a). Is TCGSA a new way of approaching relationships that are global and
transnational in character and identity?
ARTs, surrogacy, and adoption have created possibilities of configurations

amongst kin that may not necessarily be seen as ‘new’ (Schneider 1997).
However, emerging research points towards the dynamism of cross-cultural
kinship practices in the use of ARTs that are redefining the study of kinship in its
theoretical core (Bharadwaj 2003; Pande 2009a; Roberts 2009). For instance, the
process of ‘vernacularization’ of biomedical technologies actively combines
religion and ‘local’ kinship ideas in differing cultural contexts (Simpson 2013).
Thus, IVF and ARTs are unable to sustain universalized Western notions
regarding science and technology and its impact on human lives. Ethnographic
encounters with (p.12) ARTs in other parts of the globe point towards how they
become subject to localized manifestations. Hence, ARTs take on ‘mutating’
characteristics (Inhorn and Birenbaum-Carmeli 2008) that differentiate the
Indian (Bharadwaj 2007), from the Ecuadorian (Roberts 2007), the Egyptian
(Inhorn 2009), the Vietnamese (Gammeltoft 2007; Pashigian 2009), to the
American (Rapp 2000) experiences of IVF/ARTs. Essentially in such encounters,
biology or ‘“Bio” … can be visualized as an ethnoscientific rendition of the
“human biological” and as such stands—not necessarily opposed to—multiple
cross cultural conceptualisations of human biology. Thus, bio can be gainfully
conceptualised as an instance of biologically based biography, be it individual or
Page 8 of 24
Introduction
institutional’ (Bharadwaj 2007: 102). However, is the cross-cultural ‘encounter’

of kinship, kin, and technology so ‘fluid’ and easily translatable?
Ultimately, the ‘procreative universe’, ‘a sociocultural space which in some way

embraces the complex reality in which biotechnologies and assisted conception
are embedded’ (Melhuus 2012: 4) is not universal. It is marked by differences
where the cultural ideas of conception form an active field of multiple conflicts.
It is these conflicts, differences, and multiplicities that this book wishes to
engage with.
However, in favouring multiplicities, one must give precedence to multiple ways

of being and relating. In this endeavour, one is engaging with the study of ARTs
and surrogacy within a transnational lens. Questions regarding kinship are
analysed from the frame of processes and practices. The processual analysis of
kinship though a long-term endeavour (Carsten 1995) is employed in the thesis
to look at the entire surrogacy arrangement as it unravels in the respondents’
narratives. The processual view is both dynamic and diachronic. It also includes
the many negotiations and conflicts that mark the practice of practical kinship
(Bourdieu 1990; V. Das 1995). Yet, one cannot forget, ‘[a]nalyses that treat
kinship as a fluid process rather than a “state” suggest the emergence of a new
kind of anthropology, in which scholars have finally (p.13) succeeded in moving
beyond the assumptions of a genealogical framework … the situation is not quite
so simple … genealogical thinking permeates more than Euro-American
conceptualizations of kinship’ (Bamford and Leach 2009 [2012]: 10–11). It is in
reply to, and exploration of, the ‘genealogical thinking’ that TCGSA proves to be
especially useful. In addition, in TCGSA, genes and kin are marked especially by
the idea and conceptualization of mothers and fathers. When exploring a cross-
cultural engagement with parenthood, I begin purposely with the way in which
popular cinema in India thinks of the mother and the father in surrogacy—
reminding us that as practices surrogacy and third-party kin-making are not
new.
Mothers, Fathers, and Others: Identifying Parentage in Surrogacy

The analysis of surrogacy in relation to motherhood has focused on the
biological–social tie. The break in motherhood as seen in the surrogacy
arrangement overturned ideas previously uncontested within kinship (Barnes
1975). As the tie closest to ‘nature’, the biological given-ness of motherhood,
especially through the visible pregnancy, made it the other taken-for-granted
foundation besides sexual procreation in the anthropology of kinship. For
Barnes, fatherhood however was not similarly imbued. The possibility of two
fathers made it contestable as opposed to motherhood. Yet, just as surrogacy
challenges the unitary notion of motherhood, it similarly places the father as the
only genetic–biological ‘standard’ within the arrangement. Therefore, while two
mothers try to create meaning out of their links with the foetus, the father’s
biological contribution in his donated sperm goes uncontested and is rarely
Page 9 of 24
Introduction
explored. The aspect of fatherhood within the surrogacy arrangement has been
explored minimally by some researchers (Berend 2010, 2012; Pande 2009a;
Ragone 1994, 1996) and will be discussed at length later in this chapter. The
primary focus has (p.14) been on the mother(s) and the negotiations entailed in
assigning identity, and to the kind of relationships that develop between the two
women.
Mothers in Popular Representations of Surrogacy in India

Motherhood in its fractured biological role of pregnancy and genes comes to
embody surrogate pregnancy. The social conflict that surrogacy creates is
primarily in relation to disrupted motherhood. This is most in evidence in films
on surrogacy in mainstream Hindi cinema. The role of multiple mothers is played
out in the context of the Indian mother as an ‘ideal’—juxtaposed with the nation
and as a eulogized role for all women (Bagchi 1990; Bhattacharji 1990). Thus,
the primary conflict is seen between the surrogate mother and the adoptive
mother both of whom try to claim ownership over the nurturance of the child.
Films on surrogacy tend to showcase the social ambivalence in the tie through
the womb, as well as in that of marriage with the intended father especially in
relation to the idealized representation of motherhood.
Two films, Doosri Dulhan (directed by Tandon 1983) and Chori Chori Chupke
Chupke (directed by Abbas and Mustan 2001), portray the surrogate mother as a
‘fallen woman’ willing to have sex with the intended father, and subsequently
relinquishing the child conceived to the adoptive mother. They are portrayed as
aberrant women in their ‘unmaternal’ desires to relinquish their own child. This
is done through the continued juxtaposition of the arrangement with money.
Madhubala, the prostitute–surrogate in Chori Chori Chupke Chupke says: ‘Pet ke
vaste kamati thi, aaj pet hi kamake dega’ (I used to earn to feed the stomach,
now the stomach will earn for me). The overt commoditization of their own
bodies is seen in shots in both the films (Chori Chori Chupke Chupke was
‘inspired’ by Doosri Dulhan) where the prostitute–surrogates Madhubala and
Chanda, respectively, are seen to haggle for the exact amount to be (p.15) paid
for the entire arrangement. However, as the pregnancy draws to a close, this
aberrant behaviour is overturned to reveal the surrogate mother as a woman
drawn to her ‘natural-maternal’ tendencies of mothering and motherhood. Both
Chanda and Madhubala get increasingly attached to the child they are carrying
through their love for the intended fathers. This is a source of conflict for the
adoptive mother who finds herself being excluded not only from the child she is
waiting for, but also from her husband.
The ‘natural’ attachment that a pregnancy creates in the woman for the foetus is
a common theme in films on surrogacy. Even the cold-hearted, commercial-
prostitute-turned-surrogate is not able to escape her body’s destiny—even
though her body is constructed for pleasure and not for motherhood (S. Ghosh
2011).7 In films where a friend of the adoptive mother plays the surrogate
Page 10 of 24
Introduction
mother this dilemma of natural attachment occurs again. In the early 2000s,
after Chori Chori Chupke Chupke was released and went on to become a box
office hit, Hindi films were exploring the idea of an altruistic surrogacy
arrangement where the friend of the adoptive mother is willing to incubate a
pregnancy for her. As a possible sign of acceptance of differing forms of family
configurations, or possibilities of the same Filhaal (directed by Gulzar 2002) and
Janani (directed by Bahl 2006) explored the theme of the friend-as-surrogate, but
resurrected the conflict between the two mothers in the plots—in negation of
alternative family forms. The refusal to relinquish the child in case of Janani
leads to a complete breakdown in relationships between the surrogate and the
adoptive mother. Here the tie of friendship and obligation that led to the birth of
the arrangement is strained. Until, that is, the surrogate mother sacrifices her
rights to the child. In this way, she overturns her aberrant motherhood by
pandering to the idealized notions of motherhood as sacrificing. Similarly, the
prostitute-surrogate in the earlier films too redeems herself by recognizing the
adoptive mother as the mother by virtue of her earnest ‘desire’ and rightful
claim—and eventually sacrifices the child. (p.16)
The focus on motherhood within surrogacy also draws from certain cultural
ideals of mothers and mothering. Thus, the relationship is seen within frames of
altruism and sacrifice placing the surrogate mother within an acceptable lens
vis-à-vis her relationship with the unborn child and the adoptive mother. This
‘altruism’ is played out in the relationship between the surrogate mother and the
‘adoptive social’ mother in the act of gift-giving that the surrogate enacts to
transfer motherhood to the latter (Pande 2009a; Ragone 1996; Teman 2010;
Thompson 2001). This involves strategies that Teman calls ‘birthing a mother’, in
which the surrogate mother treats the pregnancy as alien and encourages the
adoptive mother to participate in it. Ragone (1996) finds, similarly, that the
genetic surrogate mother privileges the role of nurturance more than that of the
pregnancy and gestation. The biological tie of kinship is made subordinate to the
cultural nurturing role to displace the pre-eminence of the surrogate as
representative of dominant notions of motherhood.
Here, the role of the father is performed in the background. The fear of the
unsaid implied sexual relationship between the intended father and the
surrogate mother involves a different set of negotiations altogether. The role of
motherhood is also wedded to that of the wife and marriage in the popular
imagination. In the films discussed earlier, the surrogate mother is unable to
fulfil this basic requirement that must link her to the father of the foetus she is
carrying. Sexual relations do not confirm that tie—it is only the tie of marriage
that grants legitimacy. The father within the surrogacy arrangement becomes an
important locus for the mediation between the identity-giving process to the
mothers within the arrangement. It is to him that we turn to next.
Page 11 of 24
Introduction
Fathers and Others in the Surrogacy Arrangement

Despite the possibility of multiple fathers, especially in the use of donor sperm
or in case of a male gay couple seeking surrogacy/adoption (Bergman, Rubio,
and Padron 2010; Stacey 2006), in (p.17) anthropological analysis of surrogacy
the ‘position’ of the father remains unscrutinized. Instead, research points
towards the ways in which the surrogate mother and the adoptive mother
negotiate the relationship with the father during the pregnancy. As Ragone
(1996) notes, the father is purposely pushed into the background in favour of the
adoptive mother—both to underscore the threat of a third-party involvement in
the marital dyad, and also to give prominence to the nurturing role of
motherhood. Thompson (2001) finds such negotiations to be even more acute
when the surrogate is a relative of the intended parents. Thus, in a case where
the surrogate was the sister of the intended father—the underlying incestuous
relationship was negated in favour of the genetic tie the foetus had to the
adoptive mother. The sister continued to focus on her role as a gestate carrier
for her brother’s and sister-in-law’s child (Thompson 2001).
The ways in which the gay and single fathers view the relationship with the
surrogate mother and contribute to the child is a largely unexplored area of
analysis—one to which this book aims to contribute. That fatherhood too can be
disrupted in its genetic role is seen in the way in which the DNA test is used to
reject and ascertain the biological father in his social role (Fonseca 2009, 2011).
ARTs have also disrupted the role of fatherhood as is evident in the analysis of
anonymous sperm donation and male infertility (Lundin 2001; Throsby and Gill
2004)—both of which are shrouded in secrecy. Fatherhood thus needs to be
viewed in its role both as a patriarchal standard and as a negotiated experience
within surrogacy.
This would mean including the potential that the husband of the surrogate fulfils
as a candidate for fatherhood, whose relevance within the study of surrogacy
has not been explored completely. Berend (2010, 2012) finds that the surrogate’s
husband occupies both a role of support and antagonism in relation to her role
within the arrangement. His stance does have an impact on their relationship
especially if he is not supportive of the surrogate’s involvement. (p.18) In case
of the Indian surrogate mothers, Pande (2010b) finds that their husbands try to
rationalize the wife’s involvement in surrogacy through notions of sacrifice and
penance (tapasya). The couple works towards overcoming the stigma that
involvement in the arrangement necessarily entails. The participation of those
not directly involved in the relationship between the surrogate mother and the
intended parents also creates important avenues for dealing with kinship and
family within the arrangement (discussed in Chapter 4 of this book).
Thus, in navigating the role of motherhood and fatherhood the missing ‘third
party’ is the most glaring aspect of research on surrogacy. Relatives and friends
of the couple, personnel connected to the state machinery help navigate the
Page 12 of 24
Introduction
arrangement as a ‘kin making’ enterprise. Here, Chatterjee’s (2004) formulation

of ‘unfamiliar relationships’ is important to see the ways in which the family and
kinship also include members and relationships that are invoked to negotiate
and identify relationships of biology and marriage.
While the clinician and the IVF specialist have formed the subject of study in the
kinds of ‘kinship work’ they undertake in relation to ARTs (Bharadwaj 2003;
Cussins 1998; Franklin 1997; Franklin and Roberts 2006; Inhorn 2009;
Thompson 2001), in case of surrogacy the role of the ‘third-party’ has been
largely restricted to that of the surrogate mother. Although Ragone (1994) does
introduce the types of surrogacy programs in the US, based on the IVF
specialist’s personality and philosophy, in the form of the ‘open’ and ‘closed’
programs—it is an emerging area of engagement in case of commercial
surrogacy in India (Rudrappa 2015).
In case of India the IVF specialist has been a source of criticism in academic and
feminist research on surrogacy. Their role in socializing the surrogate into
understanding her pregnant body as a ‘vessel’ within the arrangement is crucial
(Saravanan 2010; Vora 2009). In fact, according to Menon, ‘In the context of new
reproductive technologies, we find that potential parents contracting (p.19)
with a surrogate are reassured by drug companies and medical practitioners
that if the genetic matter is theirs (that is, the egg and the sperm), then the child
is “biologically” theirs, since the surrogate’s womb only acts as “an oven”, “a
rented room”….’ (2012: 49). Besides the IVF specialist, the agents (like the
agency Building Futures discussed earlier) are now the focus of studies on the
recruitment of surrogates and the creation of demand for the treatment (Bisht
2013; Deepa et al. 2013; Deomampo 2013b). Rudrappa (2015) engages with one
of the owners and agents of an IVF-surrogacy clinic in Bangalore, India; as does
Pande (2014), but their inputs in defining parenthood is not delved into deeper.
This book explores the role of the IVF specialist and agents in the arrangement
in the negotiation of the kinship dilemmas that the TCGSA brings forth
(discussed in Chapters 3 and 4 of this book). It is within this context that the IVF-
surrogacy clinic and the surrogacy agencies represent a particular form of ‘IVF
culture’ that brings forth the contradictions of global–local imaginaries within
the neoliberal economy of infertility medicine. The ‘figure’ of the IVF clinic as it
is played out in multiple sites: on the Internet, on the bodies of surrogate
mothers and intended parents, and in ‘travelling gametes and expertise’
occupies the operation and management of transnational commercial gestational
surrogacy arrangement.
The Trade in Wombs: Technologies, Bodies, and Commerce

TCGSA is part of the ‘IVF culture’ in India which aggressively markets and
advertises ARTs as the only solution to replicating and recreating a ‘failed
biology’ in the form of infertility. This IVF culture involves the commercialization
of a medical service and treatment along with the associated reproductive
Page 13 of 24
Introduction
services such as egg/sperm donation, commercial gestational surrogacy, medical

expertise, and the technology. It operates from IVF clinics and (p.20) super-
speciality hospitals in Indian metropolitan cities and small towns and is focused
on ‘selling’ the technology as ‘emancipatory’ (Arora 1996)—even though it is
deeply flawed and unpredictable (Sarojini et al. 2011). Along with the
technology, doctors, and specialists create a demand for their advice and
expertise through selective accessibility and mythic reputations (Bharadwaj
2006b). The ‘IVF culture’ in India combines, successfully, the elements of local
beliefs, practices, and policies and blends them with global understandings,
protocols, and patents to not only engage with ‘local moral worlds’ (Kleinman
1992), but ideas that come to embody transnational, global modes of being.
In creating a culture of glocalized practices and global technology, IVF culture is

largely dependent on the fertility or IVF-surrogacy clinic.8 The IVF-surrogacy
clinic, I suggest, occupies a contradictory space that is trying to follow global
norms of uniformity—while unconsciously operating within and replicating local
peculiarities.
The IVF-surrogacy clinic in India occupies an important position within the

globalization of reproduction. Recent research tries to understand and place it
within notions of ‘experimental sociality’ (Vora 2014).
In the transnational ART clinic, we can observe medicine shifting from a

technique of caring for the body to one of producing bodies as the
instruments of service work as part of an experiment with engaging a
transnational, technologically mediated market that depends on socially
mediated arrangements with local, relatively low-resourced women
surrogates …. At the same time, the transnational reach of clinic directors
and their ability to command technology and resources at a global level
represents something unique. (Vora 2014: 79–80)
Can the space of the surrogacy clinic—with its surrogate hostels, foreign
clientele, and ‘state-of-the-art’ technology and expertise—be a new form of
‘outsourcing hub’? Is it possible that the IVF-surrogacy clinic is actually involved
in a ‘globalization of (p.21) nothing’ (Ritzer and Lair 2009)? Some of the
characteristics that Ritzer and Lair (2009) identify as being hallmarks of the
outsourced service work—may be found in case of TCGSA. Thus, many of the
characteristics such as ‘no face-to-face contact with the customer; with high
information content; where the work process is telecommutable or internet
enabled; where a high wage differential exists between similar jobs in different
countries; where there are low set-up barriers; and where there is a low social
networking requirement’ (Ritzer and Lair 2009: 40) are actively endorsed and
initiated by the IVF-surrogacy clinic. Yet these characteristics also propagate an
idea of TCGSA as part of the uniform, depersonalizing, outsourced terrain of the
globalization of nothing. Just like the ‘McJobs’ (Ritzer and Lair 2009: 37) where
Page 14 of 24
Introduction
the employee has minimum interaction with the customer, and is under the
surveillance and control of the employer-corporation—the IVF-surrogacy clinic
attempts a similar exercise in the surveillance of ‘hired wombs’ (Saravanan
2010).
As institutionalized biomedical ventures IVF clinics operated within the space of

market logic or demand and supply. They are driven less by the considerations of
treatment and more by the creation of demand. The market for infertility is
largely dominated by private players. Prime players were niche infertility–
surrogacy clinics in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad,
and other major cities in India. Corporate hospitals have also entered the IVF
business in a big way with speciality wings. In a metropolis like Delhi, many of
the clinics were run by IVF specialists themselves—very few, like Miracle Babies,
were run as corporations, managed and invested in by other corporations rather
than doctors or medical establishments. Miracle Babies had third-party
administrators (TPAs) as its sponsors who, in financial parlance, provide services
for claims and cashless health insurance. However, in ongoing research of
surrogacy clinics and agencies in Mumbai, Bisht (2013) finds that TPAs refer to
agents or those who liaison between the clinic, client, and the surrogate such as
Building (p.22) Futures. In the Delhi data, the agents were not specifically
known as TPAs, but did work with the TPAs identified above. Primarily, the Third
Party Affiliate or Administrator’s work as a conduit was different if seen as an
agent, and completely different as a source of funding and investment.
During the fieldwork, Delhi was fast becoming a hub for surrogacy. Its
advantages were clearly felt in its global amenities, especially hospitals and
qualified doctors—as well as in terms of having the headquarters of the Indian
government machinery. International embassies too were based in New Delhi—
making citizenship processes easier for foreign couples. Most of the IVF clinics,
barring perhaps one or two of them did undertake surrogacy cases. The
difference lay not only in the clinic’s level of involvement in a surrogacy case,
but also in the way in which the IVF specialist/gynaecologist/embryologist/
laparoscopist approached the arrangement.
In cities like Jaipur, where I undertook related and intermittent fieldwork, IVF
clinics did brisk business,9 but not through surrogacy arrangements. Despite
wanting to undertake them, IVF doctors found the venture difficult due to the
paucity of women willing to be surrogates. Except for one or two cases in a year,
most doctors felt that the stigma attached to the arrangement was the primary
deterrent. However, according to Dr Joshi who ran an infertility clinic as part of
a hospital in a Jaipur suburb, egg donors and women willing to be surrogates
were both equally difficult to source. She had done two to three cases of
surrogacy where the couples had arranged for the surrogates themselves and
she and the clinic had acted as ‘third parties’. Most of the surrogates came from
Page 15 of 24
Introduction
a lower class background and were sourced locally—within the neighbourhood,

through maids.
A typology of the clinics encountered in Delhi and Jaipur would be based on

factors such as the kind of clientele they attracted, the cost of the treatment
being offered, and the ownership of the clinic. Corporate clinics, mentioned
earlier, were run by non-medical (p.23) personnel and were geared towards
providing multiple services in a more organized fashion. They also had more
doctors on board.
In 2010–12, a commercial surrogacy ‘package’ would cost between US$ 12,000–

28,000 (Kohli 2011: 13). This may consist of the surrogate’s fees, the IVF/ICSI
(intracystoplasmic sperm injection) costs, and other additional expenses (hotel
stay, visa/passport fees, etc.). The fee for the treatment includes not only the
cost of the technology, but the IVF specialist’s charges as well (Figure 1.1). The
infertility clinic often prepares and offers these packages––just like the infamous
Akanksha clinic in Anand, Gujarat, which garnered much international media
attention (Carney 2010; Oza 2010). The clinic offers the medical treatment, the
surrogate, and the anonymous donors (egg/sperm) going beyond the brief of
pure medical treatment. This has of late attracted a lot of media (p.24)
attention amidst allegations of human rights violations by clinics that ‘house’
pregnant surrogates in hostels, away from their families, for the period of nine
months under strict surveillance (Carney 2010), prompting the Indian Council of
Medical Research (ICMR—the apex Indian body that works in conjunction with
the Ministry of Health, Government of India, in the area of legal regulation of
medical practices) to suggest in its Regulation of ARTs (Draft) Bill (ICMR 2010)
the setting up of parallel ARTs banks.
Statistics regarding the kind of

revenue the transnational
surrogacy industry is earning
are still not available in entirety,
however the medical tourism
industry in India10 was expected
to be worth four billion dollars
in 2012 itself (Reddy and
Qadeer 2010, quoting a
Confederation of Indian
Industries [CII]–McKinsey
forecast). The growing
prospects of this economy have
been thanks to state-of-the-art
Figure 1.1 Average Expenditure Involved
technology and qualified
in Commissioning a Surrogacy
personnel, at 20 per cent of the
cost in the US and UK (Reddy and Qadeer 2010). India is increasingly being
Page 16 of 24
Introduction
recognized as the ‘surrogacy Arrangement—Culled from the Field and

outsourcing capital’. This is also Newspaper Reports (2010–13)
evident from previously Source: Author.
collected data by the ICMR that
recorded a growth in
membership to Indian Society of Assisted Reproduction (ISAR) from 184 in 1999
to 600 in 2005 (Sarojini et al. 2011). There are some 3000 registered IVF clinics,
which is a very conservative estimate, not including sperm banks, surrogacy
agents, etc., whose numbers have burgeoned over the past five years. The ARTs
industry was slated to bring in one to two billion dollars by 2012 as per a CII–
McKinsey report (Sarojini et al. 2011). The low cost of ARTs in India, combined
with even lower compensation for surrogates, is a major attraction for foreign
clientele. Table 1.1 lists the comparative costs in arranging a surrogacy
arrangement in India, the US, and the UK.
Table 1.1 IVF and IVF-Surrogacy Costs in the US, UK, and India
Type of Infertility Treatment US India UK
IVF Cycle (single) 20,000 2000 7000 Pounds

USD USD Sterling
Surrogacy Arrangement (including 15,000 11,000 10,000 Pounds

IVF cycle) * USD Sterling
USD
*
Excluding IVF treatment.
Source: Sarojini et al. (2011).
In the commerce surrounding the reproductive tourism and transnational

commercial surrogacy industry, the surrogate’s fees are the lowest and the most
compromised. This is why the exploitation of Indian surrogates as surplus
biocapital forms the (p.25) predominant critique of the surrogacy industry
amongst feminist academics and activists (Hochschild 2011; Qadeer 2009;
Qadeer and John 2009; Rao 2012). Kaushik Sunder Rajan’s (2007) formulation of
the ‘new surplus’ emerging from the developing world in the form of surplus
bodies meant for clinical drug trials and experiments also captures the ‘trade in’
gestational surrogates from India, and egg donors from countries belonging to
the erstwhile Eastern Bloc. The commodification of the woman’s body draws as
much criticism as does the image of the commodified child. Mohan Rao (2012) in
his trenchant critique of the surrogacy industry in India asks for a ban on
commercial surrogacy. The unregulated nature of the industry, according to him,
is the root cause behind the exploitation of poor Indian women as gestational
surrogates. In such an enterprise, Rao finds reproduction as having become
‘denationalized’ with women’s bodies providing the ‘surplus reproductive labour’
to create commodities like the foetus and frozen embryos and eggs.
Page 17 of 24
Introduction
However, feminist readings of exchange within kinship have already offered a re-
reading of the exchange of women as ‘goods’ (Levi-Strauss 1971) essentially for
their reproductive labour. Here, women are not always the ones ‘exchanged’, or
men the wielders of power through their possessions. In fact, amongst the
Trobrianders, women undertake exchanges that are not limited to the economy
(p.26) of goods, power, and prestige but embody larger concerns of the
cosmogony of community and social reproduction (Weiner 1976). Similarly, in
contemporary readings of Rubin’s (1975) ‘traffic in women’, the reproductive
bioeconomy of eggs is seen to involve a ‘traffic between women’ of obligatory
relationships that are played out through the exchange of eggs and financial
favours amongst close and distant kin in Ecuador (Roberts 2009). What does this
do to the idea of the gift in a transnational context where bodies and bodily
services are sold to create kin?
The ideology of the gift relationship is the bedrock of the commercial surrogacy
arrangement. It creates a facade of altruism when there is none. This is what
forms a large part of the euphemization of the contractual surrogacy
relationship as a ‘gift relationship’ (Bourdieu 1977). The preponderance of such
an ideology is meant to mark commercial gestational surrogacy with some level
of sanctity and legitimacy considering its ‘negative’ positioning in relation to the
commoditization of intimate relationships (Cannell 1990; Levine 2003; Teman
2008).
However, in the transnational context, the ideology of the gift relationship

cannot be appropriated. Anthropological analysis on commercial gestational
surrogacy in India points towards the ways in which agencies and doctors
actively promote a ‘gift rhetoric’ to not only distance the surrogate from the
foetus, but also to draw the surrogate into an obligatory relationship (Pande
2011; Ragone 1996; Vora 2010/11). The ‘gift of life’ comes to be positioned as an
exchange of ‘life for life’ (Vora 2013) wherein the Indian surrogate was willing to
gestate a child in exchange for monetary compensation that would help her and
her family survive. For them the ‘gift’ was positioned in terms of a cycle of debt
and obligation (Vora 2013)—by ‘giving’ away a child they hoped to incur a
lifelong obligatory relationship with the intended parents that would ensure
their own survival. Many surrogate mothers saw their overseas couples as
‘saviors’ around whom they built fantasies of being rescued from their lives of
drudgery (Pande 2011). (p.27)
Here, however it is important to add a caveat regarding the academic obsession

that seeks the local in the global and vice versa—within an overarching theory of
globalization (Ritzer and Lair 2009). Thus, reproductive governance in India and
the associated feminist activism charts its own journey that can not necessarily
be mapped in a uniform manner on a transnational–global space (although Gupta
[2006] suggests that transnational feminisms should draw from their local
experiences to bring together a common shared narration on NRTs). As Mary
Page 18 of 24
Introduction
John (2011: 9) notes: ‘Affirming a politics of location means living with critical
contestations that make clarity hard to come by and requires re-envisioning
current constructions ...’ which is why it is important to situate TCGSA within
the existing rhetoric of NRTs and ARTs in India.
A comparative perspective is important keeping in mind Nussbaum’s

contention that the notion of choice seems to be especially constructed in
relation to women. Thus, to choose stigmatized work like prostitution or
surrogacy, does not only mean the lack of other available options, but also
a conscious choice in itself. In such situations, ‘we may grant that poor
women do not have enough options and that society has been unjust to
them in not extending more options, while nonetheless respecting and
honoring the choices they actually make in reduced circumstances’.
(Nussbaum 1998 cited in A. Majumdar 2014)
In India, the paradox of women’s reproductive roles has placed them in positions
of being both idolized and discarded (Samanta 1992). As mothers, Indian
commercial gestational surrogates are living repositories of love and hatred. It is
in the negotiations with the child, the ‘other’ mother and the father of the child
that the surrogacy arrangement in India is understood and practiced in its
contemporary form. The book captures each of these elements—of commerce,
families and kinship—in its reading of the ethnography of reproductive tourism
and commercial surrogacy in the city of New Delhi.
(p.28) On the Processual: The Process of (Un)Making Kin

While the book draws primarily from a processual view of kinship—it is
interested in chronicling the many conflicts, and their resolutions through the
TCGSA and the act of making and unmaking kin. While the ethnographic
narrative looks at the IVF process it does not go into an observation of the
technology at practice because; it has been dealt with before in other
ethnographic studies, and due to the limited access the ethnographer had to the
IVF specialist-administered treatment. At each stage of the process, key players
were identified and new participants introduced. Thus, each chapter deals with
these key moments and addresses the question of kinship and relatedness that
emerges out of these interactions—these ‘breaks’ are seen in the form of
fractures and dissonances as well as through their resolution.
In mapping the process of TCGSA and the ways in which relatedness is

understood and ‘constructed’ within it, the book chronicles three primary
stages. Akin to Howell’s (2003) stages of ‘kinning’ transnationally adopted
children through ‘pre-pregnancy’, ‘pregnancy’, and ‘birth’ (2003: 470–1)—
TCGSA comes to situate itself through three similarly conceptualized stages.
These stages are not watertight—they are linked to one another, but may also
pose impediments to progressing to the next stage, and may also lead to the
collapsing of the stages into each other. Besides each stage has multiple other
Page 19 of 24
Introduction
processes encapsulated within it. The identification of TCGSA with the three
main stages of ‘intention’, ‘pregnancy’ and ‘ownership/membership’ is not an
attempt to create a ‘model’ of the process, but to track its dynamism and the
different permutations and combinations that go into making it. However, these
stages help navigate the ways in which ‘kinship work’ (Thompson 2001) is
enacted/rejected during the process. They also trace the ways in which the
process of commoditization may lead to (p.29) de-commoditization, especially
in the gradual positioning of the arrangement and the process.
Thus, as the Figure 1.2 depicts, the back and forth between Stages 1 and 2
meant repeated oscillations between commissioning an arrangement and getting
pregnant. Failure in getting pregnant or a miscarriage means that Stage 1 may
be enacted again with the same sets of people or through replacements of some
of the key participants—such as the surrogate mother, or the clinician. Stages 1
and 2 often recur, especially when any of the follow-up steps within the two
stages fails. The final stage in that sense is more stable—as it occurs after the
birth of the child—but has other forms of negotiations within it.
An analysis of the stages is also

an exercise in looking at what
the TCGSA entails and means
for the different sets of people
involved in the arrangement.
The three stages have very
different meanings for
commissioning couples,
surrogate mothers, clinicians,
and (p.30) relatives and
friends of the surrogate
Figure 1.2 The Process of TCGSA
mothers and the commissioning
couple. In weaving together the Source: Author.
diverse, often conflicting,
experiences the TCGSA comes
alive as a process mirroring larger social anxieties regarding technological
interventions in interpersonal relationships. It is to these anxieties and dilemmas
and their navigations to which the chapters speak.
The social dramas have been insightful depictions of the processual dynamics
involved in the working of the surrogacy arrangement. Here, I have employed a
singular ‘impressionistic tale’ (Van Maanen 2011) right at the beginning of each
chapter as ‘stand alone with or without elaborate framing devices or extensive
commentary’ (Van Maanen 2011: 103). The attempt is to both make an analytic
point in relation to the chapter, as well as to spark interest through the ‘telling
Page 20 of 24
Introduction
of the story’. In employing the impressionistic tale I am also taking a reflexive

stance in showcasing how an event in, or aspect of the field was perceived.
Intention as Choice?
What drives the desire to be part of the commercial surrogacy arrangement in
India? Chapter 2 seeks to answer this question by looking at an important aspect
of transnational commercial surrogacy: informed consent from the
commissioning couple and the surrogate mother. A ‘declaration of intent’ by
both participants is a mandatory document within the surrogacy contract. What
does intention mean? It is not merely a willingness to participate and agree with
the modalities of the commercial surrogacy contract, but also to ‘choose’ to be
part of it. Within this ‘choice’ and the use of the nomenclature of the ‘intended
parent’ and the ‘fertile’ surrogate are the processes of screening eligibility to be
part of the arrangement. Thus, in the examination of the notion of ‘intention’,
the ‘contract’, couple/individual and the surrogate mother ‘speak’ of their choice
of surrogacy. In this way, motherhood and fatherhood are explored in relation to
ideas regarding kinship, genes, and nurturance. (p.31)
Much of the debates on commercial surrogacy are marked by the interventions

and involvement of the assisted reproductive technologies such as IVF. In
Chapter 3, the medico-technological process of commercial surrogacy is seen
through the involvement of IVF specialists, embryologists in their identification
and understanding of genes and kinship. The chapter also explores the ways in
which fertility clinics negotiate with the practice of commercial surrogacy by
invoking the Indian Council of Medical Research’s draft law on surrogacy and
reproductive technologies. The chapter also looks at how medicine does not
always operate within a tradition of rationality but often invokes local-folk
wisdom of kin and kinship to understand the consequences of assisted
conception. In that sense, IVF specialists, clinicians, and embryologists often
become ‘matchmakers’ invoking an idea of genes and biology that is not
embedded in scientific rationality.
Disembodied Relationships
In the process of making kin—which is what transnational commercial surrogacy
is geared towards—the surrogate pregnancy becomes a ‘goal’ for all participants
involved. However, the liminality of the pregnancy becomes both risky and
transgressive when navigated through the bodies of ‘alien’ others. Both for the
surrogate mother and the intended parents the pregnant body becomes a source
of ambivalence and conflict. In Chapter 4, the ethnography maps the role of the
‘others’—agents, relatives of the intended parents, the surrogate’s husband—in
making meaning out of an ‘alien pregnancy’. Here, the embodied/disembodied
pregnancy leads to ‘disembodied relationships’. Cross-cultural notions regarding
conception, pregnancy and birth intermingle in a conflicted narrative of
‘kinning’ a soon-to-be born child. The idea of shared bodily substances within the
Page 21 of 24
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Habedin. During this short journey my body swelled prodigiously,
without giving any other sign of life. The village sheik having placed
me on a mattress, sent to Hems for a surgeon. For nine whole hours
I remained perfectly insensible; and at the end of that time opened
my eyes without the smallest perception of the objects around me, or
recollection of what had befallen me. I felt as if under the influence of
a dream, but without being sensible of pain. In this state I lay for
four-and-twenty hours, and recovered from my lethargy only to suffer
such indescribable agonies that I fancied it would have been better a
hundredfold to have remained at the bottom of the precipice.
Sheik Ibrahim never quitted me for an instant, and offered the
highest rewards to the surgeon in case he should succeed in saving
me. The latter was zealous, but by no means skilful; and no
amendment appearing at the expiration of thirty days, gangrene was
apprehended. The Drayhy had visited me immediately on being
informed of my accident; and he also wept over me, and offered rich
presents to stimulate the surgeon’s efforts: but at the highest point of
his sensibility he could not suppress his regret for the loss of his
mare Abaige, who was of pure blood, and worth ten thousand
piastres. Nevertheless, he was in real distress, as was Ibrahim; for
they not only feared my loss, but foresaw in it the miscarriage of all
their operations. I endeavoured to encourage them, telling them that
I did not believe myself dying. But it was too true, that though, I
should be spared, there was no probability of my being for a long
while in a condition to travel.
The Drayhy was obliged to take leave of us to pursue his migration
eastwards; and Sheik Ibrahim was in despair at seeing me grow
daily worse. Hearing at length that a more skilful surgeon resided at
El Dair Attia, he sent for him. The surgeon refused to come, requiring
that the patient should be taken to him. I was therefore put upon a
sort of litter in the best manner that could be contrived, and carried to
him, at the hazard of expiring on the road. The new surgeon entirely
changed the dressing of my wounds, and washed them with warm
wine. Three months I stayed with him, suffering martyrdom, and a
thousand times regretting the death I had escaped. I was then
transported to the village of Nabek, where for three months longer I
kept my bed. From that period I may date the actual commencement
of my recovery, though it was retarded by frequent relapses. Upon
the sight of a horse, for example, I fainted, and continued for a
month in a state of extreme nervousness, which at length, and by
degrees, I conquered: but I am bound to confess that to this moment
the presence of that animal causes me a shudder; and I made a
resolution never again to mount a horse, except in a case of
absolute necessity.
My illness cost Sheik Ibrahim five hundred tallarins. But how shall I
estimate his attentions, his paternal care! I am assuredly indebted to
him for my life.
During my convalescence he learnt that our friend the Pacha of
Damascus had been replaced by another, Soliman Selim. This news
greatly disconcerted us, as it appeared indicative of the loss of our
credit with the Turks.
Ten months had elapsed—a second spring was come, and we were
expecting with impatience the arrival of the Bedouins, our allies,
when, to our great joy, a courier announced their approach. We
forwarded him in haste to the Drayhy, who liberally rewarded him for
the good news he brought of my recovery, which produced universal
joy in the camp, where I had long been supposed dead. We waited
some days longer, till the tribe advanced nearer; and in the interval a
singular story came to my knowledge, which I think worthy of
insertion, as an illustration of Arab manners.
A merchant of Anatolia, escorted by fifty men, was leading ten
thousand sheep to be sold at Damascus. On the road he made
acquaintance with three Arabs, with one of whom he formed a close
intimacy, and at parting was desired to swear fraternity with him. The
merchant could not discover in what respect he, who was the
proprietor of ten thousand sheep, and was escorted by fifty soldiers,
could be benefitted by having a brother amongst the poor Bedouins;
but the Bedouin, whose name was Chatti, was so importunate, that,
to satisfy him, he consented to give him two piastres and a handful
of tobacco as pledges of fraternity. Chatti divided the two piastres
between his companions, saying, “Be ye witnesses that this man is
become my brother.” They then separated, and the merchant
thought no more of the matter, till, at a place called Ain el Alak, a
party of Bedouins, superior in number to his escort, attacked and
routed them, took possession of his sheep, and stripped him to his
shirt; in which pitiable condition he arrived at Damascus, imprecating
curses upon the Bedouins, and especially upon his pretended
brother Chatti, whom he accused of betraying and selling him.
Meanwhile the news of so rich a capture was quickly spread in the
desert, and reached the ears of Chatti, who, having with some
difficulty found his two witnesses, brought them before Soultan el
Brrak, chief of the tribe of El Ammour, to whom he declared that he
was brother to the merchant who had just been robbed, and called
upon the chief to enable him to fulfil the duties of fraternity, by
restoring the property. Soultan, having taken the depositions of the
two witnesses, was obliged to accompany Chatti to El Nahimen, the
sheik of the tribe which had carried off the sheep, and to reclaim
them in conformity with their laws. The sheik was under the
necessity of restoring them; and Chatti, having first ascertained that
none were missing, took the road to Damascus, with the flocks and
their shepherds.
Leaving them outside the town, he entered it in search of his brother,
whom he found seated in a melancholy mood in front of a coffee-
room of the Bazaar. He went straight to him with a joyful air; but the
other turned angrily away, and Chatti had great difficulty in obtaining
a hearing, and still greater in persuading him to believe that his
sheep were waiting for him outside the walls. He apprehended a new
snare, and would not for a long while consent to follow the Bedouin.
Convinced at last by the sight of his sheep, he threw himself on
Chatti’s neck, and after giving full expression to his gratitude, vainly
exerted himself to induce him to accept a recompense proportioned
to such a service. The Bedouin could only be persuaded to receive a
pair of boots and a cafia (handkerchief), not worth above a tallarin at
the utmost, and, after partaking of his brother’s bread, returned to his
tribe.
Our first interview with the Drayhy was truly affecting. He came
himself, with the principal members of his tribe, to seek us at the
village of Nabek, and took us back in a sort of triumph to the camp.
By the way he gave us the history of the wars he had waged in the
territory of Samarcand, and his good fortune in vanquishing four of
the principal tribes,[P] and afterwards inducing them to sign the
treaty. It was important to have detached these tribes in time from
their alliance with the Wahabees, to whom they were formerly
tributary; for it was reported that our enemies were preparing a
formidable army, and flattered themselves with obtaining the
supremacy of all Syria. Soon afterwards we heard that the army was
on its march, spreading terror and devastation everywhere on its
passage.
The Pacha of Damascus despatched orders to the governors of
Hems and Hama, to keep guard day and night, and to hold their
troops in readiness for battle: while the inhabitants fled towards the
coast, to escape the sanguinary Wahabees, whose name alone
sufficed to drive them from their homes.
The Drayhy was invited by the pacha to a conference with him at
Damascus; but fearing some treason, he excused himself under
pretence of the impossibility of deserting his post at so critical a
moment. He even requested from him some auxiliary troops, hoping
by their assistance to be able to keep the enemy in check.
While waiting for the expected reinforcement, the Drayhy caused a
solemn declaration of war to be made, according to the custom of
the Bedouins on very particular occasions, in the following form:—A
white female camel was selected, and blackened all over with soot
and oil; reins made of black hair were then put over her, and she was
mounted by a young maiden dressed in black, with her face and
hands also blackened. Ten men led her from tribe to tribe, and on
reaching each she proclaimed aloud three times,—“Succour!
succour! succour! Which of you will make this camel white? she is a
relic from the tent of the Drayhy menacing ruin. Fly, fly, noble and
generous defenders! The Wahabees are coming! they will carry
away your allies and your brothers: all you who hear me, address
your prayers to the prophets Mahomet and Ali, the first and the last!”
Saying which, she distributed amongst the tribe handfuls of black
hair, and letters from the Drayhy, indicating the place of rendezvous
on the banks of the Orontes. Our camp was in a short time
augmented by the coalition of thirty tribes, assembled in the same
plain, and so thickly encamped that the ropes of our tents touched.
The Pacha of Damascus sent ten thousand men to Hama,
commanded by his nephew Ibrahim Pacha, there to wait for other
troops which the Pachas of Acre and Aleppo were to furnish.
Scarcely had they met, when the arrival of the Wahabees at Palmyra
was announced by the inhabitants, who fled to take refuge in Hama.
Ibrahim Pacha wrote to the Drayhy, who repaired to him, and they
arranged together their plan of defence. The Drayhy, who took me
with him as his counsellor, acquainted me with the stipulations
agreed upon; when I pointed out to him the danger of uniting
Bedouins and Turks in the same camp, the latter having no means of
distinguishing in the confusion of battle their friends from their
enemies. The Bedouins themselves, indeed, recognize each other in
the heat of the fight only by their war-cries, each tribe incessantly
repeating its own,—“Khrail el allia Doualli,—Khrail el bionda Hassny,
—Khrail el hamra Daffiry,” &c.;—Khrail signifying horsemen; allia,
bionda, hamra, indicating the colour of their favourite mare; Doualli,
Hassny, Daffiry, are the names of the tribes. This war-cry, therefore,
is equivalent to the words, horsemen of the red mare of Daffir, &c.
Others invoke their sister, or some other beauty; hence the Drayhy’s
war-cry is, Ana Akhron Rabda,—I the brother of Rabda; that of
Mehanna,—I the brother of Fodda: both have sisters renowned for
their beauty. The Bedouins pride themselves greatly in their war-
cries, and would consider that man a coward who should hesitate to
pronounce it in the moment of danger. The Drayhy saw the force of
my argument, and persuaded Ibrahim Pacha, though with difficulty,
to consent to a division of their forces.
The next day we returned to the camp, followed by the Mussulman
army, composed of Dalatis, Albanese, Mogrebins, Houaras, and
Arabs; in all, fifteen thousand men. They had with them some pieces
of ordnance, a few mortars and bombs, and pitched their tents half
an hour’s march from ours: the pride of their bearing, the variety and
richness of their costumes, and their banners, altogether formed a
magnificent spectacle; but, in spite of their fine appearance, the
Bedouins jested upon them, and asserted that they would be the first
to fly.
In the afternoon of the second day a broad cloud was observable
towards the desert, spreading itself like a thick fog as far as the eye
could reach: by degrees the cloud cleared up, and the enemy’s army
appeared in view.
This time they brought their wives, their children, and their camels,
and established their camp, composed of fifty tribes, forming
seventy-five thousand tents, at an hour’s march from ours. About
each tent, camels and a great number of sheep were tied;
presenting, together with the horses and warriors, a formidable mass
to the eye. Ibrahim Pacha was in consternation, and sent in great
haste in search of the Drayhy, who, having succeeded in reanimating
his courage a little, returned to the camp, to order the necessary
entrenchments. For this purpose all the camels were assembled,
bound together by their knees, and placed in double files in front of
the tents; and, to complete the rampart, a trench was dug behind
them. The enemy on his part did the same, and the Drayhy ordered
the hatfé to be prepared. This singular ceremony consists in
selecting the most beautiful amongst the Bedouin girls, to be placed
in a houdah, richly ornamented, borne by a tall white camel. The
choice of the maiden who is destined to occupy this honourable but
perilous post is very important, for the success of the battle depends
almost entirely upon her. Placed opposite to the enemy, and
surrounded by the bravest warriors, it is her duty to excite them to
the combat: the principal action always takes place around her, and
prodigies of valour defend her. All would be lost should the hatfé fall
into the enemy’s hands; and, to avoid so irreparable a misfortune,
half the army must always be stationed about her. Warriors succeed
each other on this point, where the battle is always hottest, and each
comes to gather enthusiasm from her looks. A girl named Arkia,
uniting in an eminent degree courage, eloquence and beauty, was
chosen for our hatfé. The enemy also prepared his, and the battle
soon afterwards commenced. The Wahabees divided their army into
two corps: the first and most considerable, commanded by Abdallah
el Hedal, the general-in-chief, was opposed to us; the second, under
the command of Abou Nocta, to the Turks. Both the character of the
latter, and their mode of fighting, are totally different from those of
the Bedouins, who, prudent and cool headed, begin the action
calmly, but growing gradually animated, become at last furious and
irresistible. The Turk, on the contrary, proud and arrogant, rushes
impetuously upon the enemy, and fancies he has only to appear and
conquer: his whole energy is thus expended on the first shock.
The Pacha Ibrahim, seeing the Wahabees attack coldly, deemed
himself sufficiently strong to disperse their entire army without
assistance; but, before the end of the day, he had learned by dear-
bought experience to respect his enemy, and was forced to permit
his troops to fall back, leaving us to sustain the whole weight of the
action.
Sunset suspended the engagement, but not till both parties had
suffered a severe loss.
The next morning brought us a reinforcement, in the tribe of El
Hadidi, four thousand strong, all mounted on asses, and armed with
muskets. We numbered our forces, which amounted to eighty
thousand men; but the Wahabees had a hundred and fifty thousand,
and this day’s battle terminated in their favour. Our defeat,
exaggerated, as always happens in similar cases, was reported at
Hama, and filled the inhabitants with dismay; but two days
afterwards their fears for us were removed, and for three weeks we
were alternately discomfited and successful. The actions became
daily more sanguinary; and on the fifteenth day of this trying
campaign, a new enemy, more formidable than the Wahabees, arose
in the shape of famine. The town of Hama, which alone could furnish
subsistence to either army, was exhausted, or concealed its
resources. The Turks took to flight; our allies dispersed, to avoid
perishing with hunger; the camels, forming the rampart of our camp,
began to devour one another. Amidst such frightful calamities, the
courage of Arkia never for an instant wavered. The bravest of our
warriors were slain by her side; but she ceased not to encourage
them, and to excite and applaud their efforts. She animated the old
by extolling their valour and experience; the young, by the promise of
marrying him who should bring her the head of Abdallah el Hedal.
Keeping my station near her houdah, I saw all the warriors present
themselves to her for some words of encouragement, and then rush
to the combat, excited to enthusiasm by her eloquence. I confess I
preferred hearing these compliments to receiving them myself, for
they were almost uniformly the forerunners of death.
I one day saw a fine young man, one of our bravest soldiers, present
himself before the houdah: “Arkia,” said he, “O thou fairest amongst
the fair, allow me a sight of thy face, for I go to fight for thee!” Arkia,
unveiling, replied: “Behold, O thou most valiant! Thou knowest my
price; it is the head of Abdallah!” The young man brandished his
spear, put spurs to his courser, and rushed into the midst of the
enemy. In less than two hours he sank covered with wounds.
“Heaven preserve you!” said I to Arkia, “this brave man is
killed.”—“He is not the only one who has never returned,” she
sorrowfully replied. At this moment a warrior made his appearance,
armed from head to foot; even his boots were defended with steel,
and his horse covered with a coat of mail, (the Wahabees reckoned
twenty such warriors amongst them; we had twelve.) He advanced
towards our camp, challenging the Drayhy to single combat: this has
been the custom amongst the Bedouins from time immemorial; he
who is thus defied, cannot without forfeiting his honour refuse to
fight. The Drayhy, hearing his name, prepared to answer to the
challenge: but his kinsmen joined with us to prevent it. His life was of
too much importance to be thus risked; for the loss of it would have
entailed the total ruin of our cause, and the destruction of the two
allied armies. Persuasion becoming useless, we were obliged to
have recourse to coercion. We bound him with cords hand and foot
to stakes driven into the ground in the middle of his tent: the most
influential chiefs supported him, and entreated him to calm himself,
urging the imprudence of risking the welfare of the army for the
purpose of answering the insolent bravado of a savage Wahabee.
Meanwhile, the latter incessantly exclaimed: “Let the Drayhy come
forth! this shall be his last day; I am waiting to terminate his career.”
The Drayhy, who heard him, becoming more and more furious,
foamed with rage and roared like a lion; his blood-shot eyes almost
starting from his head, while he fought with terrible strength to
disencumber himself of his bonds. This tumult attracted a
considerable multitude around the tent, when suddenly a Bedouin,
making his way through the crowd, presented himself before the
Drayhy. His sole clothing was a shirt bound round his loins with a
leathern girdle, and a turban on his head; he was mounted upon a
bay horse, and armed only with a spear; and thus singularly
equipped, he came to ask, in the following metrical style, permission
to fight the Wahabee instead of the sheik: “This day, I, Tehaisson,
have become master of the horse Hadidi: it has long been the object
of my ambition; I wished to receive upon his back the praises due to
my valour. I am about to fight and to vanquish the Wahabee, for the
beautiful eyes of my betrothed, and to render myself worthy of his
daughter who was always conqueror.” So saying, he rushed to
combat the hostile warrior. No one imagined that he could for one
half hour resist his formidable antagonist, whose armour rendered
him invulnerable; but if the blows he dealt were thus robbed of their
murderous power, he avoided with wonderful dexterity those that
were aimed at himself during the two hours that the struggle lasted.
Meanwhile, all was suspense; the deepest interest was manifested
on both sides. At length our champion turned round, and apparently
took to flight. All hope was now lost; the enemy was about to
proclaim his triumph. The Wahabee pursued, and, with a hand
strengthened by the assurance of success, flung his lance; but
Tehaisson, foreseeing the blow, stooped even to his saddle-bow, and
the weapon flew whizzing above his head; then, suddenly returning,
he thrust his spear into the throat of his adversary, taking advantage
of the moment when the latter, being obliged to curb his horse hastily
before him, was in the act of raising his head. This movement
leaving a space between the helmet and the cuirass, the spear
passed through from side to side, and killed him on the spot: but his
armour supporting him in the saddle, he was carried by his horse
into the midst of his followers; and Tehaisson returned in triumph to
the tent of the Drayhy, where he was enthusiastically received. All
the chiefs embraced him, loading him with eulogies and presents;
and Sheik Ibrahim was not backward in testifying his gratitude.
Meanwhile, the war and the famine continued to rage: even in the
Drayhy’s tent we were two days without food; on the third, he
received a considerable supply of rice, which Mola Ismael, chief of
the Dallatis, sent him as a present. Instead of husbanding it as a last
resource, he ordered that the whole should be dressed, and invited
all present to sup with him. His son Saher would not sit down to
table; but, being importuned by his father, he requested that his
portion might be given to him, and carried it to his mare, declaring
that he had rather suffer himself, than see her die for want of food.
We had now arrived at the thirty-seventh day from the
commencement of the war: on the thirty-eighth, the battle was
terrible. The camp of the Osmanlis was taken and pillaged: the
pacha had scarcely time to escape to Hama, whither he was
pursued by the Wahabee, who there besieged him.
The defeat of the Turks was the more fatal to us, as it left the second
corps of the hostile army, commanded by the famous Negro Abou
Nocta, at liberty to unite with Abdallah, and make a combined attack
upon us. The following day witnessed the commencement of a
frightful struggle, which lasted eight days without intermission. The
combatants were so intermingled together, that it was impossible to
distinguish one party from another. They fought with the sabre man
to man; the entire plain was deluged with blood, the colour of the
ground being totally invisible: never perhaps was such a battle
fought. The inhabitants of Hama, fully persuaded that we were utterly
exterminated, no longer sent us those occasional supplies of
provisions which, coming at our utmost need, had hitherto preserved
us from starvation. At length the Drayhy, finding his misfortunes
accumulate, assembled his chiefs, and addressed them thus: “My
friends, it now becomes necessary that we should make a last effort.
To-morrow we must either conquer or die. To-morrow, by God’s
permission, I will destroy the enemy’s camp: to-morrow we will feast
upon its spoils.” This harangue was received with a smile of
incredulity; until one, more daring than the rest, replied: “Give but the
word, and we will obey.”—“This night,” he continued, “you must
noisely transplant your tents, your wives, and your children, to the
other side of the Orontes. The whole must have disappeared before
sunrise, without the cognisance of the enemy. Then, having no
longer any care to trouble us, we will make a desperate attack upon
them, and will exterminate them, or perish ourselves in the attempt:
but God will be on our side, and we shall conquer.” Every one
hastened to execute the commands thus given, with incredible order,
celerity, and silence. The next day, the efficient warriors alone
remained. The Drayhy divided them into four corps, ordering a
simultaneous attack upon the four sides of the enemy’s camp. The
troops, in desperation, threw themselves upon their prey like hungry
lions; and the impetuous but well-concerted onset was attended with
all the success which could have been wished. Confusion and
disorder spreading rapidly amongst their unexpectedly enclosed
ranks, the Wahabees took to flight, abandoning their women and
children, their tents and their baggage. The Drayhy, without allowing
his men time to seize upon the booty, obliged them to pursue the
fugitives to Palmyra, and gave them no respite until they had
accomplished the total dispersion of the enemy.
No sooner had victory declared itself in our favour, than I departed
with Sheik Ibrahim to announce the joyful intelligence at Hama; but
nobody there would give credit to it, and the inhabitants would fain
have treated ourselves as fugitives. They exhibited the utmost
perturbation: some climbed the heights, whence they could perceive
nothing but clouds of dust; others prepared their mules for flight
towards the coast. The defeat of the Wahabees being, however,
speedily confirmed, the most extravagant demonstrations of joy
succeeded to this terrible alarm. A Tartar was despatched to
Damascus, and brought back with him forty loads of wheat, twenty-
five thousand piastres, and a sabre and a robe of honour for the
Drayhy, who made his triumphal entry into Hama, escorted by all the
chiefs of the allied tribes. He was received by the governor, the agas,
the pacha, and all his court, in the most splendid manner.
After four days of rejoicings we quitted Hama, to rejoin our tribes,
and conduct them to the east before the approach of winter. The
Drayhy was personally attended by a company of twelve; the others,
in groups of five or six, dispersed themselves in the desert of
Damascus. Our first stay was at Tall el Dehab, in the territory of
Aleppo, where we encountered four tribes who had taken no part in
the war. The chiefs came forward to meet the Drayhy, penetrated
with respect for his recent exploits, and soliciting the favour of being
admitted to sign the treaty of alliance with us.[Q] From thence we
marched without interruption to join our friend, the Emir Faher, who
received us with the most lively demonstrations of joy. In company
with his, and several other tribes, proceeding like ourselves to
Mesopotamia, we crossed the Euphrates, some establishing
themselves in the neighbourhood of Hamad, others in the desert of
Bussora.
On the road we received a letter from Fares el Harba, announcing
that six considerable tribes, who had fought on the side of the
Wahabees against us, were encamped in the Hebassia, near
Machadali, and were well disposed to enter into alliance with us; and
that if the Drayhy would send me to him furnished with full powers to
treat, he believed himself certain of success. I lost not a moment in
availing myself of this invitation, and, after a journey of six hours,
reached him without accident. Fares el Harba immediately broke up
his camp, and conducted me to the distance of a day’s journey from
the tribes.[R] I then wrote in his name to the Emir Douackhry, chief of
the tribe El Fedhan, exhorting him to make an alliance with the
Drayhy, and promising oblivion of the past. Douackhry came in
person to Fares el Harba, and we were soon agreed; but he
disclaimed answering for more than his own tribe, considering that it
would be extremely difficult to succeed with the others. He proposed,
however, that I should accompany him back, when he would
assemble the chiefs of all the tribes, and exert his utmost influence
with them. I accepted the invitation, and departed with him; but when
arrived in the centre of what ought to have been an encampment, I
was painfully affected to behold hordes of Arabs crouching on the
ground under the full blaze of the sun: having lost their tents and
baggage in the battle, their only bed was the bare ground, their only
canopy the sky. A few rags suspended here and there upon pikes
did indeed afford a semblance of shade to these unfortunate beings,
who, having stripped themselves of their only garments to furnish
this slender shelter from the fervent heat of the sun, were exposed to
the sting of insects, and to the thorny points of the plants on which
their camels browse. Many were wholly destitute of any defence
either from the heat of day or the cold of night, at that autumnal
season, when the contrasts of temperature are most fatal.
Never had I conceived an idea of wretchedness so complete: the
sad spectacle oppressed my heart and drew tears from my eyes,
and it was some time before I could recover from the agitation it
occasioned me.
The next day Douackhry assembled the chiefs and old men to the
number of five hundred. Alone in the midst of them, I despaired of
making myself heard, and especially of being able to unite them in
one counsel. Independent in their character and manners, and
irritated by misfortune, they all mooted different opinions; and if
neither hoped to make his own prevail, at least each made it a point
of honour to maintain it obstinately, leaving all the others at liberty to
do the like. Some proposed removing to the Nedgde country, others
to retire to Samarcand: these vociferated imprecations against
Abdallah, chief of the Wahabee army; those denounced the Drayhy
as the author of all their misfortunes. Amid the conflict of voices, I
armed myself with patience, and endeavoured to conciliate all
parties. I began by shaking their confidence in the Wahabees;
showing them that Abdallah must necessarily have become their
enemy, since they had abandoned him on the last day of the battle,
and that he was now seeking vengeance upon them: that in going to
Nedgde they voluntarily threw themselves under the domination of
Ebn Sihoud, who would extort from them oppressive contributions,
and compel them to bear the whole burden of a disastrous war: that
having once deserted his cause, and effected their withdrawal from
his power, they should not follow the example of the foolish bird, who
no sooner escapes the sportsman’s shot than he falls into the
fowler’s net. At last, the fable of the bundle of sticks occurred to my
mind; and thinking so simple a demonstration would make an
impression on their unsophisticated minds, I determined to make a
practical application of it before their eyes. Having exhorted them to
be united, and by their union to resist all oppression, I took from the
hands of the sheiks about thirty djerids, and presented one to the
Emir Fares, requesting he would break it, which he effected with
ease. I then presented him with two, and afterwards with three, all of
which he broke in the same manner, for he was a man of great
muscular strength. I then placed in his hand the whole bundle, which
he could neither break nor bend. “Machala,” said I, “thy strength is
not sufficient;” and I then passed the united spears to another, who
succeeded no better. A general murmur now arose in the assembly:
“Who could split such a mass?” cried they unanimously. “I take you
at your word,” said I; and in the most energetic language I could
command, I applied the apologue to their reasoning faculties,—
adding, that so powerfully had I been affected by their destitute
condition, without clothing or shelter, that I pledged myself to solicit
from the Drayhy the restitution of their baggage and tents, and that I
was sufficiently acquainted with his magnanimity to answer for the
success of my application, if they entered heartily into the alliance, of
which I had just proved the advantages. Upon this they all exclaimed
with one voice: “Thou hast conquered, Abdallah; we are thine in life
and in death!” and all ran forward to embrace me. It was then
determined that they should give the Drayhy the rendezvous in the
plain of Halla, to affix their seal to the treaty.
Recrossing the Euphrates the next morning, I rejoined our tribe on
the fifth day, and found my friends uneasy at my protracted absence;
but the report of my fortunate negotiation filled them with joy. I have
already so frequently detailed meetings, feasts, and rejoicings of
every kind, that I shall not repeat the same narrative by describing
those which took place on this occasion.
The Emir Douackhry buried the seven stones, and thus
consummated the alliance; and after dinner I witnessed for the first
time the ceremony of swearing fidelity over bread and salt. The
Drayhy then declared that he was ready to fulfil the engagement I
had contracted in his name, by restoring the booty taken from the six
tribes who had just united their cause with his. But the generous will
was insufficient—the means of its execution were still to be provided.
In the pillage of the Wahabee and allied camp, the plunder of fifty
tribes was confounded, and to identify the property of each was no
easy matter. It was decided that the women alone were competent to
the task; and it would be impossible to form an idea of the exertion
and fatigue of the five days employed by them in recognising the
cattle, tents, and baggage of the various tribes. Every camel and
sheep has two ciphers stamped with a hot iron on the leg, those of
the tribe and the proprietor. But when, as it often happens, the
ciphers are similar, or half effaced, the difficulty of identifying them is
extreme; and under the exhausting task of reconciling such various
pretensions, and deciding such harassing controversies, which it
required something more than generosity to endure with patience, I
was sometimes tempted to repent my momentary impulse of
compassion and my imprudent promise.
At this time a great caravan from Bagdad to Aleppo passed, and was
plundered by the Fedans and Sabhas. It was very richly laden with
indigo, coffee, spices, Persian carpets, Cashmires, pearls, and other
valuable articles, which we estimated at ten millions of piastres. No
sooner was the capture known, than merchants flocked to the
desert, some from a great distance, to purchase these treasures
from the Arabs, who sold, bartered, or rather gave them away almost
for nothing. For instance, they exchanged a measure of spices
against an equal measure of dates; a Cashmire shawl, worth a
thousand francs, against a black saddle-cloth; a chest of indigo for a
linen dress; entire pieces of India muslin for a pair of boots. A
merchant from Moussoul bought, for a shirt, a saddle-cloth, and a
pair of boots, goods worth fifteen thousand piastres; and a diamond
ring was sold for a roll of tobacco. I might have made my fortune on
the occasion, but M. Lascaris prohibited my either purchasing or
receiving any thing as a gift, and I scrupulously obeyed. Every day
tribes arrived from the Nedgde country, deserting the Wahabees to
join us; some attracted by the Drayhy’s extraordinary reputation,
others driven by dissensions with King Ebn Sihoud. One
circumstance of that nature brought us five tribes in a body. The emir
of the tribe Beny Tay had a very beautiful daughter, named Camara
(the moon); Fehrab, son of the chief of a neighbouring tribe, and a
relative of the Wahabee, became enamoured of her, and contrived to
gain her affection; but the girl’s father discovering their passion,
forbade her speaking to the prince, and himself refused to receive
him or listen to his proposals, designing Camara for her cousin
Tamer; for it is a custom amongst the Bedouins, which reminds one
of those transmitted to us by the Bible, for the nearest kinsman to be
preferred to all other suitors when a maiden’s marriage is in
question.
Camara, however, neither swayed by the usages of her people, nor
intimidated by her father’s menaces, positively refused to espouse
her cousin; and her attachment acquiring strength in proportion to
the obstacles opposed to it, she lost no opportunity of corresponding
with her lover. The latter, seeing no hope of obtaining her parent’s
consent, resolved to run away with her, and opened the proposition
to her through an old woman whom he had gained. She gave her
consent; and he introduced himself into the tribe Beny Tay in the
disguise of a mendicant, and arranged with her the hour and
circumstances of the elopement. In the middle of the night the
maiden stole fearfully out of her father’s tent, to the prince, who was
waiting for her at the entrance of the camp. He placed her behind
him on his mare, and dashed across the plain; but the celerity of
their flight could not conceal them from the jealous eye of Tamer:
enamoured of his cousin, and determined to maintain his right, he
had long watched the proceedings of his rival, and every night
mounted guard near Camara’s tent. At the moment the lovers
escaped, he was making his circuit; but immediately perceiving
them, he galloped in pursuit. Fehrab’s mare, endowed by nature with
all the fleetness of the Nedgdian race, and stimulated to greater
exertions by her master’s impatience, urged her course to its highest
speed; but, pressed by a double burden, she could at length no
longer give her wonted aid to her master—she fell; and Fehrab,
seeing himself on the point of being overtaken by Tamer, lifted his
beloved from the horse, and prepared for her defence. The combat
was terrible, and its sequel tragical. Tamer was victor, slew Fehrab,
and seized his cousin; but, exhausted by fatigue, and now in full
security, he fell asleep for a moment by her side. Camara, who had
watched the influence of slumber stealing over his senses, snatched
up his sabre, stained with the blood of her lover, and cut off the head
of her ravisher; then precipitating herself upon the point of his lance,
pierced her own heart. The three dead bodies alone were found by
those who went in search of them.
A murderous war between the two tribes was the consequence of
this melancholy event;—that of Fehrab, supported by the Wahabees,
forced Beny Tay to a retreat; and the latter, with four other tribes,[S]
its allies, came to solicit protection from the Drayhy, whose power
was henceforth unrivalled. Five hundred thousand Bedouins, allied in
our cause, formed but one camp, and overspread Mesopotamia like
a cloud of locusts.
While we remained in the neighbourhood of Bagdad, our allies
pillaged another caravan coming from Aleppo, laden with
productions of European manufacture; cloths, velvets, satins, amber,
coral, &c.; and although the Drayhy took no part in these spoliations,
he was too well versed in Bedouin habits to think of offering any
opposition. The Pacha of Bagdad demanded satisfaction, but
obtained none; and perceiving that to enforce justice would require
an army of at least fifteen thousand men, he renounced his claim,
happy to continue in friendship with the Bedouins at any sacrifice.
Sheik Ibrahim now saw his hopes realized beyond even his most
sanguine anticipations; but as long as any thing remained to be
done, he would allow himself no repose: crossing the Tigris,
therefore, at Abou el Ali, we continued our march, and entered
Persia. Here, also, the reputation of the Drayhy had preceded him,
and the tribes of the country came continually to fraternize with us;
but in our vast plan of operations, these partial alliances were
insignificant,—we required the co-operation of the great prince, chief
of all the Persian tribes, the Emir Sahid el Bokhrani, whose
command extends to the frontiers of India. The family of this prince
has for many years reigned over the errant tribes of Persia, and
claims its descent from the kings Beni el Abass, who conquered
Spain, and whose descendants still call themselves the Bokhrani.
We learned that he was in a very distant province. The Drayhy
having convoked all the chiefs to a general council, it was decided to
traverse Persia, keeping as near as possible to the sea-coast,
notwithstanding the probable scarcity of water, in order to avoid the
mountains which intersect the interior of this country, and to find
pasturage. In the itinerary of a tribe, a plentiful supply of grass is
more important than water: the latter may be transported, but nothing
can remedy a deficiency of food for the cattle, on which the very
existence of the tribe itself depends.
This march occupied fifty-one days. During the whole time we
encountered no obstacle on the part of the inhabitants, but were
often seriously incommoded by the scarcity of water. On one of
these occasions, Sheik Ibrahim, having observed the nature of the
soil and the freshness of the grass, advised the Drayhy to dig for
water. The Bedouins of the country treated the attempt as madness,
saying that no water had ever been known in those parts, and that it
was necessary to send for it to a distance of six hours. But the
Drayhy persevered: “Sheik Ibrahim is a prophet,” said he, “and must
be obeyed.”
Holes were accordingly dug in several places, and at the depth of
four feet excellent water was found. Seeing this happy result, the
Bedouins by acclamation proclaimed Sheik Ibrahim a true prophet,
his discovery a miracle, and, in the excess of their gratitude, had well
nigh adored him as a god.
After journeying several days among the mountains and valleys of
the Karman, we reached the deep and rapid river Karassan; and
having crossed it, proceeded in the direction of the coast, where the
road was less difficult. We made acquaintance with the Bedouins of
the Agiam Estan, who received us in a very friendly manner; and on
the forty-second day after entering Persia, we arrived at El
Hendouan, where one of their greatest tribes was encamped,
commanded by Hebiek el Mahdan. We hoped that our long
pilgrimage was drawing towards its close; but the sheik informed us
that we were still distant nine long days’ journeys from Merah
Fames, the present residence of the Emir Sahid, on the frontiers of
India. He offered us guides to conduct us thither, and described the
points where it would be necessary to lay in a provision of water;
without which information, we should have been exposed to great
danger in this last expedition.
We despatched couriers before us, to give notice to the grand prince
of our approach, and of our pacific intentions. On the ninth day he
came to meet us, at the head of a formidable army. It did not at first
appear very clear whether this demonstration of strength was to do
us honour or to intimidate us. The Drayhy began to repent of having
ventured so far from his allies. However, he showed no symptom of
fear, but placing the women and the baggage behind the troops, he
advanced with the choicest of his cavalry, accompanied by his friend
the Sheik Saker,—the same to whom in the preceding year he had
delegated the command of the desert of Bassora, and who had
negotiated all our alliances there during our stay in Syria.
The prince soon satisfied them respecting his intentions; for,
detaching himself from this numerous host, he advanced with a
small train of horsemen to the middle of the plain which separated
the two armies; the Drayhy did the same; and the two chiefs, on
meeting, alighted and embraced with every expression of cordiality.
If I had not so frequently described the hospitality of the desert, I
should have much to say on the reception we experienced from the
Emir Sahid, and the three days’ festivities with which he welcomed
us: but, to avoid repetitions, I shall pass over this scene, only
remarking, that the Bedouins of Persia, more pacific than those of
Arabia, entered readily into our views, and fully understood the
importance of the commercial intercourse we were desirous of
establishing with India. This was all that it was needful to explain to
them of the nature of our enterprise. The emir promised us the co-
operation of all the tribes of Persia under his dominion, and offered
his influence with those of India, who hold him in high consideration,
on account of the antiquity of his race, and of his personal reputation
for wisdom and generosity. He entered into a distinct treaty with us,
which was drawn up in the following terms:—
“In the name of the clement and merciful God, I, Sahid, son of Bader,
son of Abdallah, son of Barakat, son of Ali, son of Bokhrani, of
blessed memory: I hereby make a declaration of having given my
sacred word to the powerful Drayhy Ebn Chahllan, to Sheik Ibrahim,
and to Abdallah el Katib. I declare myself their faithful ally; I accept
all the conditions which are specified in the general treaty now in
their hands. I engage to assist and support them in all their projects,
and to keep their secrets inviolably. Their enemies shall be my
enemies; their friends, my friends. I invoke the great Ali, the first of
men, and the well-beloved of God, to bear witness to my word.
“Health.”
(Signed and sealed.)
We remained six days encamped with the tribe of Sahid, and had
thus an opportunity of observing the difference between the customs
of these Bedouins and those of our provinces. The Persians are
milder, more sober, and more patient; but less brave, less generous,
and less respectful to the women: they have more religious
prejudices, and follow the precepts of the sect of Ali. Besides the
lance, the gun, and the sabre, they use the battle-axe.
Prince Sahid sent to the Drayhy two beautiful Persian mares, led by
two negroes: the latter, in return, made him a present of a black
mare of great value, of the race of Nedgdie, named Houban Neggir,
and added some ornaments for his wives.
We were encamped not far from Menouna, the last town of Persia,
twenty leagues from the frontiers of India, on the banks of a river
which the Bedouins call El Gitan.
On the seventh day we took leave of Sahid, and recommenced our
march, in order to reach Syria again before the heats of summer set
in. We marched rapidly, and without precautions, till one day, while
we were passing through the province of Karman, our beasts were
carried off; and the next day we were ourselves attacked by a
powerful tribe, commanded by the Emir Redaini, an imperious man,
and jealous of his authority, who constitutes himself the guardian of
the caliphate of Persia. These Bedouins, very superior in number,
were as much our inferiors in courage and tactics: our troops were
vastly better commanded. Our position was, however, extremely
critical—we were lost if the enemy gained the smallest advantage;
for all the Bedouins of the Karman would at once have surrounded
us, and hemmed us in as with a net, from which there would have
been no possibility of escaping. The necessity, then, of inspiring
them with respect by a decisive victory, which should at once cure
them of any inclination to try their strength with us for the future, was

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Transnational Commercial Surrogacy

and the Un Making of Kin in India

Transnational Commercial and Consumer Law: Current

Transnational Commercial Law Text Cases and Materials

Dalhuisen on Transnational Comparative Commercial

Dalhuisen on Transnational Comparative Commercial

Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India Akshaya Mukul

How India Became Democratic: Citizenship and the Making

Digital Politics and Culture in Contemporary India The

Math Problem Book I Kin Y. Li (Kin-Yin Li)

Transnational Commercial Surrogacy and the

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(p.i) Transnational Commercial Surrogacy and the (Un)Making of Kin in India

(p.iii) Transnational Commercial Surrogacy and the (Un)Making of Kin in India

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.

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(p.v) To my parents (p.vi)

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(p.ix) Tables and Figures

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I remember my first meeting with Trent and Philip in a south Delhi

Since 2010, when my guide gently nudged me towards commercial surrogacy, I

The Indian Institute of Technology Delhi had supported my research through a

Shalini Grover has been a wonderful academic colleague, guiding me through

Mayabhushan Nagvenkar has seen this book through. He has pushed me to

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Abstract and Keywords

In an air-conditioned conference room in one of the many significant

wombs’ by foreigners, and may also eventually ban commercial surrogacy

It is the protection of social relationships within a practised milieu of tradition

The Cast of Characters

The idea of a suitable surrogate was a notion constructed by IVF specialists,

The Transnational Commercial Gestational Surrogacy Arrangement (henceforth

Conflicted Kinship: Sex, Biology, and the Social

The metanarrative of biology continues to inform the contemporary study of

local cultural contexts. In anthropological research findings the cultural-

Thus, when researching a practice of ‘making kin’ through assisted reproductive

To begin with, the possibilities included in commercial gestational surrogacy are

1. In case of a heterosexual couple where the female partner is unable to

The combination of gametes from foreign/Indian couples/individuals, anonymous

In such a context, as foreign, heterosexual, and gay couples form a significant

ARTs, surrogacy, and adoption have created possibilities of configurations

institutional’ (Bharadwaj 2007: 102). However, is the cross-cultural ‘encounter’

Ultimately, the ‘procreative universe’, ‘a sociocultural space which in some way

However, in favouring multiplicities, one must give precedence to multiple ways

Mothers, Fathers, and Others: Identifying Parentage in Surrogacy

Mothers in Popular Representations of Surrogacy in India

Fathers and Others in the Surrogacy Arrangement

arrangement as a ‘kin making’ enterprise. Here, Chatterjee’s (2004) formulation