Mohan Rao
Spring 2007
Series Number: 48
In the early 1990s, the slogan Hum Do, Hamare Do; Woh Paanch Unke Pachees, meaning “We are two and have two; they are five and have twenty-five,” became particularly strident in India. It played on the Government of India’s slogan calling for a small family, “We are two and we have two.” But it added something noxious to it: it implied that we, Hindus, are two and have two children, while they, Muslims, are five and have twenty-five children. The arguments were simple, but deeply flawed.