India’s Shadow Children

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I'm Tanya Datta.

A sense of identity is something most people take for granted.

We know where we're from, and we know who we're related to.

But for thousands of people, those building blocks are trickier.

Since the 1970s, babies from orphanages in developing nations

have been removed from their countries of birth

and sent abroad to be adopted.

I've tracked the story of one of them, Stephanie from France.

Here's assignment, India's Shadow Children.

Can you believe we're sitting here together, Steph?

On a beach in Mumbai?

Not really, actually.

After my 12-hour flight,

but feels good, feels nice.

I'm sorry for dragging you out,

but look, that's the most amazing sunset.

It's an amazing sunset and a really amazing place.

I've been thinking, dreaming about coming back to India for quite some time now,

so I wanted to have this connection to

no bit more India, where I'm from, and Mumbai is a special place for me.

It is, can you say why?

I spent a year in an orphanage,

here in Mumbai, and this is where I've been adopted from by my French parents.

And now you're back.

And now I'm back, and now I'm trying to reconnect with my birth story.

Stephanie is French, she's 39, and we've known each other for years.

We're both of Indian descent.

Stephanie was adopted from India and sent to France when just a baby.

I'm a second-generation British Indian migrant,

born and brought up in the UK.

I've visited India often.

So when I found out that Stephanie knew almost nothing about her Indian roots,

I offered to help her search for her birth mother whenever she felt ready.

Stephanie's story isn't unique.

In the 1980s, India sent the second highest number of children to Western nations

for inter-country adoption after South Korea.

We're talking about thousands of babies sent abroad over the past five decades.

And increasingly they're returning to unearth their stories.

They are India's shadow children.

You know that I wrote to the orphanage, actually?

Yes.

I did not get any reply until two days ago,

and they reply very kindly to my email, attaching the birth file.

They attached your birth file?

Yeah, they did.

Have you read it?

Not yet.

I was waiting to be with you.

That's fantastic.

It's amazing.

That's an amazing feeling.

And you weren't Stephanie there.

Were you?

You were baby Shaya.

I was baby Shaya.

Shaya means shadows.

Yes, it means shadows.

Are you ready to bring your story out of the shadows, Steph?

Yes, I am.

Stephanie had a happy childhood with her adoptive French parents Pierre and Dominique.

From the age of 16 months, she was brought up in a small village near the city of Anise,

in south-eastern France.

She felt deeply loved by her family,

and recalls her parents concealing nothing about her adoption from her,

nor her connection to India.

Obviously, I didn't have the same color as them,

so you cannot lie about that and you ask questions.

So, if they couldn't have kids on their own,

so, like, it was the most amazing experience for them.

But they were never any lie or hidden things or whatever.

No, I remember them telling me that when I would be 18 something,

we would go back to India if this is something that we wanted to do.

And to be honest, I felt that I didn't want to go, but I told to India.

But why wasn't Stephanie interested in her roots?

I was abandoned. It wasn't paper.

So, you move on somehow.

It's not like the story was, oh, she could not keep you.

I didn't have that. I just have a line on the paper and saying,

you've been abandoned, parents unknown, and that's it.

So, you have to move on too. You have to grow up with that.

Abandoned. That's what it said in the official adoption documents

that Stephanie's parents were given,

and those papers are what she's referring to here.

When I first saw them, I was struck by the absence of information they contained,

beyond the name of the place where she was born,

and the name of the orphanage that had looked after her,

there was virtually nothing.

But it was the bluntness of the phrase,

absolutely abandoned and destitute that jumped out.

Those words conjured an image of a baby abandoned on a roadside,

and apparently the same vision had haunted Stephanie too.

So, she felt a deep sense of rejection.

It was a feeling that only changed when tragedy struck in France.

Because unfortunately, I lost both of my adoptive parents.

After that, I felt the need to be a bit more balanced.

To have roots somewhere. So, yeah, that was the trigger.

After the deaths of her French mum and dad, almost a decade past,

before Stephanie felt ready to take up my offer,

to visit our motherland together and see what we could uncover about her origins.

Once she did, I asked her to email the orphanage in Mumbai,

run by the missionaries of charity.

The Roman Catholic Order, established by Mother Teresa, for more information.

This is where Stephanie had spent the first year of her life as baby Chaya.

Back in her hotel room, I sat beside her, as she opened the reply from Sister Josian,

containing her birthfile that had never been shared with her French parents.

So, okay, here's the reply.

Okay.

So, my dear Stephanie Chaya, I hope you're well.

I was happy to read your email.

In regards to your request, I look at our admissions register,

and I'm sharing a few lines about your births.

She explained that, so there's two ways in which we receive a child in our home.

So, one is by way of surveillance.

Firstly, a child could be surrendered by an unmarried mother, a married couple,

or a widow or a widower.

Secondly, an abandoned child found in a public place could be brought in.

All her life, Stephanie, thought she was abandoned by unknown parents,

because that's what it said on her original document from the orphanage.

She reads on.

So, I and missionaries just to state that you were born on 10 March 1985 to a single

and married woman by the name of Su-Man.

Su-Man?

Oh my god.

That's the name of your mom.

That's the name of my mom.

That's incredible.

That's just the first name, though.

Her name is of Indian origin, and it means flower,

cheerful, present, and intelligence.

Wow, that's an amazing signification.

She came with you to surrender you to our missionaries of charity home at Amhavati.

I can't believe I have a name, actually.

So, if you've always had a abandoned and destitute on your documents,

and when you showed them to me all those years ago,

I felt really sad, but you weren't abandoned and destitute.

Not in this way.

Not in this way.

Not in this way.

Yes, that you've always believed you have a mom and her name is Su-Man.

I think that's a Hindu name as well, you know?

I don't know.

Oh, you're crying.

Stephanie Search has got off to an unexpectedly good start.

She's found out she was surrendered to the orphanage by Su-Man,

her unwed teenage mom, and not just left on a roadside.

Anti-adoption activists call this the difference between what's in her adoption documents

and what's in the orphanage's private birth file on her,

part of the erasure of identity that's necessary to smooth the way for her adoption.

Stephanie's keen to find out more during her visit to the missionaries of charity home

in Mumbai's bustling neighborhood of Villé Par.

She's got an appointment with Sister Josian, the nun who emailed her birth file.

With its terracotta-hued stone walls and sky blue metal gates,

the convent seems a refuge of serenity tucked away in an urban street,

and inside the buildings are simple and modest.

And unfortunately, that's as far as I got.

Sister Josian doesn't want me to record.

Instead, I wait in the courtyard until Stephanie emerges half an hour later.

So I went to the room, the room where I spent the first year of my life.

So I'm quite emotional, actually, super emotional.

I can see that.

I was not expecting on crying this day, but yeah.

Did you ask for the surname for your mother?

Yes, I did ask. I did ask, of course.

But they clearly don't want to give the name to me.

She didn't say it.

She didn't say it.

Do you think she knew it?

Yeah, she knows it, for sure.

But clearly, she said, no, it's confidential,

and that she could not disclose more information because my mom did not want to.

Your mother stated she didn't want her information going out to you.

Yes, this is what she said.

The missionaries of charity orphanage in Mumbai

must be well acquainted with adoptees like Stephanie,

hoping for more details about their origins.

From 1975 to 2019, the French adoption agency on Fonds du Monde France,

which arranged Stephanie's adoption, organized nearly 800 into country adoptions in France from India.

More than 500 were from this particular home.

Of course, many would argue that giving a child a home in Europe

is better than being destitute in India.

As we wait in the street outside for our taxi,

Stephanie smokes cigarette after cigarette.

Is your mic on?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So now that we're outside and thinking about it, actually,

I don't know what you thought then how you felt it, but

it really felt like they don't want to give any information and really being like the gatekeeper.

At the end, they just want to push your way.

So you feel now they were really there to block you?

Yes, they were really there to block me, that's for sure.

Because she said that I need to focus on the future,

no need to dig in my past, that will disturb the life of my mother.

But I mean, it was 40 years ago, so people can change and change the mind.

And your mother might cherish a desire to see you.

Yeah, we don't know.

And she went further and said, when I've asked about Amaravati,

she said, you won't find any information.

I said, but this is my city.

This is where I've been born, so I want to see.

She could have said so many things, but she said,

you won't find any more information over there.

That's the first thing she said.

That's triggering.

This is the documentary from the BBC World Service.

The dramatic stories of the families behind some of the world's biggest companies,

inheritance from the BBC World Service.

Season one, inheritance, Samsung pulls back the curtain on one of South Korea's most prominent families.

They are the equivalent of royalty, a symbol of the nation of South Korea.

Owners of global tech giant, Samsung.

There's a succession style drama underneath of all this.

Listen now, search for inheritance, Samsung, wherever you get your BBC podcast.

I'm Tanya Data, with assignment from India.

Stephanie's determined forge ahead with our plans to travel to the city of her birth.

But what if this journey actually leads Stephanie to summon her biological mom?

What can Stephanie expect?

Anjali Parwai's co-director of the adoption rights council,

a non-profit helping Indian adoptees reconnect with their roots and heritage.

Her experience has left her critical of inter-country adoption.

As a social worker and lawyer, she works undercover, sometimes for years,

to facilitate highly sensitive reunions between adoptees and birth mothers.

So do these mothers actually want to meet the children they gave up?

They are scared, but you need to give them confidence that their privacy will be maintained,

and no one will know about their secret.

Then they want it, definitely, but not where they are staying.

They always ask some discreet place, but all mothers, it's their love child.

Very rare cases where they were raped, so they wanted to know how that child is doing.

So in your experience, are the majority of children that are given away for adoption,

are they mostly from unmarried mothers?

Yeah, mostly. Old cases mostly unmarried, but during 90s to 2000, there were many scams exposed

where children were sourced from poor families, un-informed consent, which adoption agencies took from them.

In the 1990s and 2000s, the number of children sent from developing nations to be adopted in the West

saw to more than 600,000 globally. Since then, many European states have halted

inter-country adoption altogether, or significantly restricted it due to concerns about fraud,

forged documents, and unethical practices. Even so, recent figures show India still sends just

over 200 babies abroad annually. Anjali says the age-old stigma around unwed mothers continues.

Whomever I met, not a single mother said that I never wanted my child.

The requested adoption agencies that give me a job, I will take care of my child,

but I don't want to go back to home because in this situation, no one is going to accept me,

or I have to get married to such a man who is my belkoholy, who is my bippur.

So I'll do my job, some work, and then I'll take care of my child and allow me to stay here,

but adoption agencies never gave them any alternative.

And the children who come from all around the world,

are they able to form a meaningful relationship with their birth mother?

Means they are having relationship, but not the way it should be because language barrier is there.

And we are going out and spending nice time dancing, singing, doing a lot of things,

a lot of fun, even though they are not knowing language.

Stephanie and I don't want language to be an obstacle either,

so I've invited Michaeli Pamwani, a Maharashi native, to accompany us as we continue our quest.

Well, we've left the urban sprawl of Mumbai far behind, and we're now plowing through

a landscape of red earth, mountains and hills. And we're making this journey across the state of

Maharashtra to take Stephanie back to the provincial city where she was born.

It's called Amaravati, this is pretty much the only thing I know.

Michaeli, how long a journey is it to Amravati?

It's a ten-hour journey, and I thought it would be best to break it.

And I was thinking how could I show Stephanie a little bit more of India and immerse her more

in her roots, was Elora caves. It's actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Elora caves,

and it's one of the largest rock cut Hindu temple complexes, and really just a marvel in rock cut

architecture. How much part of having this ancient civilization is being Indian?

I think so much of it, honestly, we were so advanced in India, in terms of our knowledge of yoga,

our knowledge of Ayurveda, architecture, astrology. As an Indian, we all know what our country

is all about, and I really wanted Stephanie to see it firsthand.

I've been connecting with yoga and practicing yoga for the past few years. I'm also very

interested in vegetarian food, Ayurvedic treatment, so yeah, the more I think about it, it's in my

blood somehow. Oh wow, this one is actually cut out of one single large rock. A single rock,

I don't even know how that's possible. Stephanie is mesmerized by the Elora caves.

If they were still alive, this is a trip she might have done with her adoptive French parents.

Yeah, we still work here, for sure. I miss them every day.

When did you lose them? So I lost my mind when I was 20 years old and lost my life at 30,

so nine years ago. It took me years to recover. You felt alone, really alone in front.

Absolutely, and lack of identity, because now they're not here.

The next day we reach Amravati. This city, close to the very centre of India,

is a commercial hub and it looks it. There's not much to see of interest apart from some

celebrated temples that we passed in our efforts to locate the missionaries of charity home here.

At last we find it on a sleepy suburban street. With its portrait of a smiling mother Theresa,

it gives off the same aura of serenity as its sister branch in Mumbai.

But there the similarities end, because here we're all welcomed in with tea and biscuits.

We meet sister Rossine, who seems genuinely sympathetic and as we sit down with her and a handful

of smiling nuns, there's a palpable air of excitement. Could Stephanie finally be on the verge of

discovering some real information? I was born in 1985. Yes, and then I was transferred to Bombay.

I don't know when, it's not written. So you are here and you are under my care,

he told us. What was the old name? Chaya.

Chaya. CH-H-D-Y.

Wait, okay. Any photos you have a small baby?

Yes. We're just showing a photo of baby Chaya to sister Rossine.

She's seeing if she remembers her. Do you?

I cannot make up the face. Maybe I, you have come under my care, because I was there.

You must have been 85 born. You may be key in 87.

87 hours already in France.

Stephanie's hopes are dashed. It turns out they didn't overla. She was never under sister Rossine's

care. There's no paperwork here in Umravati either. Sensing her disappointment, sister Rossine

fills in Stephanie as much as possible about those days. There were lots of babies like her.

Expectant mothers arrived here all the time, sometimes up to four admissions daily.

Because, you know, Amravati is a very poor place.

So if it says on Chaya's birth certificate, born Amravati, does it mean she was born here?

No, no, not like to go. We have a hospital here, not a careman to look at.

So all our inmates, all our girls, we take there because he's a doctor or children's doctor.

We have a lead, the name of the pediatric doctor who might have looked after Stephanie

following her birth, and apparently he's still working. Revitalized by the nun's kindness

and sympathetic reception, we press on to see if we can track down this doctor.

It's this one with the...

It looks like it's a shop, are you sure it's a hospital?

Yeah, there's a cross.

Mythole's right, it is a hospital.

In the waiting room, we're told Dr Hemant Murakay has already left for the day,

but we're not giving up yet. We find a young maternity doctor who tells us that he's actually

still in the outpatients department. She takes us to meet him.

Hi, I'm Stephanie.

Stephanie Chaya, she's come from France.

I was told that she's been born here, then my mother got...

Your mother was an unmarried mother, exactly, unmarried mother.

All the unmarried mother used to get admitted here in the last trimester,

so that the babies are born intact.

So, it was our responsibility and we derived a lot of pleasure out of it,

because our aim was that this should be kept secret.

Once she becomes alright after delivery, we used to send at home,

so that she's accepted for the marriage.

It's a noble job, though the basis for unfortunate.

You know your mother and now where she is?

No, I don't, I don't.

And you probably will not like to go in that detail.

I would love to know more about my story and the story of my family, actually.

That will be heavily hard-breaking and heavily emotional.

He might be right. Dr. Hemant Murakay has been working at the hospital since 1983,

and his wife, who isn't here during our visit,

took care of all the deliveries of babies like Stephanie.

My wife is a gynecologist and of tradition.

So, it's highly possible your wife delivered Stephanie.

99% of the deliveries are attended by my wife,

and then there was an urserie, that time.

So, you would then go and check on them as a peer tradition?

I used to come there twice a week.

And is there likely to be any record of Stephanie Chia's birth?

I don't know, because we don't keep record more than 21 years.

And you're 39 years.

I'm excited to see you.

Yes, the baby has grown up.

Thank you for taking care of us.

In front of my eyes, a heaviness lives from Stephanie,

and she leaves the office of Dr. Murakay,

who almost certainly looked after her as a baby,

noticeably lighter and happier.

Back in the car, as we start our long journey back to Europe,

we reflect on the warm welcome she received in the city of her birth,

and yet, still no new leads.

Very warm welcome, a lot of stories behind my adoption in the time I was there,

but no information.

In your whole search, the one person who has been completely silent in all of this,

is your birth mother.

What I was surprised of is that yesterday, when I arrived in Amarvati,

I was really looking at women and saying, oh, maybe it's her.

So, it was all on my mind all day in Amarvati.

So, what were you looking for?

The skin, because I'm very dark skin.

So, the skin, the nose, the shape of your eyes,

everything, every woman in this city could be her.

So, does that mean she plans to continue the search for Suman, her birth mother?

I'm not sure.

It has been a lot for me these past few days,

so I really think I need to digest that before knowing if I want to continue the search.

In India, we leave it there.

And it's months later when we meet in Paris that I have the chance to ask Stephanie that question again.

At this pointing time and I took a lot of time to reflect,

I'm not going to continue the search.

I'm good with that decision.

I'm good on not having all the answers.

You were so happy to find out the name of your biological mother.

Are you still curious about her?

I still have this curiosity, but it's okay to leave it like this.

What I realized is that even though I didn't knew where I was born,

my identity, I mean, the whole part is friends.

My life, my home is in France.

My identity has been shaped by the people that grew up with me.

My parents basically.

So I don't feel the need to and balance my life for this search.

Unbalanced.

Stephanie's desire to look for her birth mother started with her not feeling balanced.

Now she clearly feels far more grounded after our trip,

enough for her to put her search on indefinite hold and to live without all the answers.

It also seems our journey has cemented a profound change in her sense of identity.

I feel also that I'm belonging to India.

It's not like a distant country now, I feel much more closer.

Do you describe yourself ever as Indian?

I was a French Indian now.

Does that feel good?

Yeah, it does feel good.

In general, I think I want to say thank you, Tanya.

It's my pleasure.

Yeah, no, definitely because it's been the biggest journey I would say for me.

So it's deeply emotional sometimes.

I don't have all the words to express that, but it's been amazing.

Thanks for listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service

and this edition of assignment.

India's shadow children was produced and presented by me, Tanya Data.

The producer in London was Linda Pressley.

The program was expertly mixed by James Beard

and the production coordinator is Katie Morrison.

Penny Murphy is Assignments Editor.

The dramatic stories of the families behind some of the world's biggest companies,

inheritance from the BBC World Service.

Season one, inheritance, Samsung pulls back the curtain on one of South Korea's

most prominent families.

They are the equivalent of royalty,

a symbol of the nation of South Korea.

Owners of global tech giant, Samsung.

There's a succession style drama underneath of all this.

Listen now.

Search for inheritance, Samsung, wherever you get your BBC podcast.