A hospital in India kicked up a controversy by asking the new staff members to declare if they were ‘virgins’ or married.
The Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Patna, one of the biggest medical facilities in the state of Bihar, asked its new recruits to declared whether they were “bachelor/ widower/ virgin”.
The word virgin was later replaced with ‘unmarried’ in the marital declaration form.
The state health minister said it was a mistake to use the word virgin. In a bid to explain the gaffe, he said the dictionary meaning of virgin was ‘kunwari’ (an unmarried woman), hence it was used in the form.
“After the matter came to my notice, I ordered the word ‘virgin’ be deleted and in its place “unmarried” be used, which is the standard practice,” news agency PTI quoted Health Minister Mangal Pandey as saying.
The minister said he personally did not see anything wrong with the words used in the declaration form and had ordered the words to be changed only in view of the opposition.
Source: Twitter/ANI
“I consulted the dictionary for the meaning of virgin and found that in Hindi, it means Kanya (girl), Kunwari (unmarried woman) or Kanya rashi (Virgo), which are not objectionable... But in view of the opposition, I got the word deleted and replaced.”
The declaration form also asked male staffers if they had one wife or more.
The recruits are also asked to declare if they are “married to a person who has no other wife living" or they are “married to a person who has another wife living" or they are “married and have more than one wife".
