Understanding The Madness

According to the 2011 census of India the number of females per 1000 male in our country is 940. This is unfortunate, yet one may find prospect in the fact that this is not a fall but 7 point rise when compared to the census of the previous decade. I for once saw hope in the news but that was until I went beyond the headline. There is one fact stated in the census report which must be heeded to and that is that the number of female children per male child fell drastically through this decade.

Why is it, one wonders, that there is such inequality in our society.  Why is it that after fighting successfully with foreign rulers for centuries we are falling to malice that our own culture has acquired for itself. Why is it that in today’s world of equality we are still obsessed with the desire for a male child? How can a woman who has felt her offspring in her womb get rid of her upon knowing that she is a girl? How indeed. Let us explore for their purposes.

A desire for son is innate to most sections of our society. It is a will that many people openly express. It is so commonly accepted that in a recent case a judge was reported saying that it is acceptable.  The reason being that in most parts of our country a patriarchal system of inheritance is followed where only sons retain the property and the name of their father. There are a few exceptions of course but none in significant majority. Therefore preference to a male child seems like a strategy for preserving the family name.

The social setup in India is such that it is a son who has the responsibility of his parents in their old age. The idea of living with a daughter and her in-laws is simply too imprudent to even consider for most parents. With income as limited as it is in our country saving for retirement is mostly not an option. For this reason most people who are unable to produce a male heir are either forced to work through their old age or to compete for old-age homes. A male child thus is a retirement plan and a daughter simply doesn't fit.

In our country where most people still live below the poverty line, children are often no more than an economic choice. A son can earn his share of bread and more from early days of his life whereas after a certain age daughters, who are not allowed to work because of backward conservative mindset of parents, are commonly accepted as burdens. Thus for many in our society having a girl child is an economic disincentive.

The most important among these factors perhaps is a curse from our past that still haunts millions of women through their life and through them their parents. Yes dowry, the socially accepted form of human trade in our culture, is perhaps the most unforgiving of all the reasons. It is because of this that many families kill their newborn or unborn daughters in fear of the grave financial misfortunes that her marriage would bring along. Whereas a son simply by his marriage can pay a lot of bills and thus the greed makes them covet.

Upon observation we find that there is some rationale in the unjust preference of a son over a daughter. There is some logic, no matter how horrid, behind the gruesome murder of a daughter. And thus there is a plausible reason behind the falling child sex ratio. There is no doubt that the number 914 to 1000 is a taint on the values of the nation. We need to rise and work towards an unbiased future because such an imbalance as this is dangerous for the country.

There are laws in India that were intended to rid us of these evils. There are laws, no matter how lax, that were intended to stop foeticide. There are also laws that were intended to stop the practice of dowry. But the thing worth marking is that there seems to be a lack of will among the administrators and police for implement such laws. This is because they too are a part of this biased society that has dual standards for the sexes. For them to change we the society have to change.

We must remember not to separate the cause from the consequence. Working towards stopping female foeticide would be unfruitful if we do not work towards eradicating the causes behind it. We must first work towards stopping the practice of dowry so that then we can work towards equality. For without equality we can only check the nuisance but we can never stop it. It is only through impartiality between the two halves of the nation that harmony can be achieved.


Further reading :
Dowry laws in India
Satyamev Jayate episode that features foeticide

Remembering The Ghosts Of Past

The transfer of rule of India, 1947

Quiet a long time has passed since that fateful stroke of midnight hour when India became independent. Many generations have come to be since that night and in this due course of time we have witnessed a great leap of hope for future in our country.  We are a generation that has not known bondage like others and this natural feel of independence has had its implications on our world view. Today we expect more from our nation and do so quiet rightly. We aspire to equal and surpass the west and thus often compare all our achievements with theirs. But when we view our failures in some fields and engage in criticism we quiet conveniently ignore the hardships and the history that has brought about this present for our nation.

Surrender of Pakistan, 1972

Ours was not an easy ride. When we started off in the fifties after the chaos of liberation we had found ourselves on shifting sands. We had an non-integrated nation riddled by wounds of partition and plagued by centuries of regionalism. The greatest worry of our government was the disintegration of the state not to mention the widespread poverty, illiteracy, famine etc. Socialist policies of Nehru Ji didn’t help much either but through the decade he managed to keep our young nation from falling apart.

Indira Gandhi in Pokhran following nuclear tests, 1974

After the war of 1962 was lost, as if to manifest the nation’s state, our then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri had severe heart attack. Through the decade our country struggled to manage food security until after much effort the green revolution was brought about.  In the following decade Smt. Indira Gandhi turned us to the Russians for support during the 1971 war. Following this we conducted the operation Smiling Buddha (Pokhran 1) and multitudes of sanctions were imposed on us and some of them were not revoked until 2002. Indira ji went on to force socialism on the country and we ended up in a political turmoil.

Seventies were also the decade when the secessionist movements rose to great heights in our country with problems in Punjab and the North East. The Naxal movement which persists even today is a child of those times. Then the assassination of Smt. Gandhi in 1984 saw the rise of riots. Mr. Rajiv Gandhi took over after her mother and in his reign we faced turmoil because of the Sri Lankan peace force episode.

The early nineties saw the economic fall out of the country as Soviet Union, on which we were greatly dependent, collapsed. While the rise of small regional parties brought in an era of coalition governments, riots based on religion were also a dominant theme in the decade and it was not until the beginning of this millennium that we saw some stability in the country.

India has progressed despite all the hardships and this is not an excuse. We have every right to be unsatisfied with the work not done and to point out that every nation that stands has had its fair share of troubles. My intention in this post was not to overwhelm you with history. My only intention behind this article is to point out that there is a long past behind what is, and being critical of today without knowing yesterday is the most unfair thing we can do to the memory of our predecessors.

I remember watching an old Bengali movie once when I was very young. The memory is in patches and this is as much as I recall. It featured the story of a village focusing on the family of a school master and his wife during our 1962 war with China. The movie showed how the teacher was unable to manage even a fistful of rice to feed his wife as there was a shortage of food all over. In hunger they had to try every way to manage food. His young wife eventually had to involve in a physical relationship with a resourceful person to feed her family. The movie captured the true desperation of the time and left a great impact on my young mind. I urge us to never be forgetful of those days.

Further Reading:
Wikipedia: Brief history of post independence India