We Worship Stone Statues but Prey Upon the Living

It is a strange irony that in a country which worships the stone and earthen images of Durga, Kali, Laxmi, Saraswati and the like as Goddesses, girls, the living incarnations of these Goddesses -don’t we Hindus believe that God resides in all living being-are neglected, victimized, burned to death, smothered at birth and even aborted in large numbers.

Not withstanding the progress women have made in post-independence India, all this happens in most parts of the country, irrespective of caste, class or income groups. Would you believe it, ‘Jai Mata Ki, Puja Karo, is a slogan denoting a female foetus needing abortion. The abortion based on pre-natal sex determination is illegal in India yet it continues to be practised on a large scale. It is practised more by the well-to-do and educated classes than their poorer counterparts. According to the Indian Medical Association as many as 250,000 female foetuses are aborted each year. The Lancet, a respected British Medical journal puts the figure at half a million but this figure is contested by the Indian Medical Association as well as some Indian demographers. The Indian demographers feel that if the rate was closer to the Lancet figure the ratio between girls and boys would have been more skewed than it is. As a result of the continuing practice of female foeticide and infanticide, the child sex ratio has been falling sharply in India, much more precipitously from 1991 onwards. The latest Indian census in 2001 reported 927 girls for every 1000 boys in the age group 0-6 years; in 1991 it was 945 girls to 1000 boys. Recent data from India’s birth and death registration suggests even a lower ratio of 900 baby girls to 1000 baby boys. Demographers suggest that in the absence of such artificial interference as foeticide the ratio should have been 852 to 1000. In some areas, particularly the prosperous ones, such as Haryana, Punjab, Delhi and Gujarat, the problem has become much more acute as there are only 900 baby girls for 1000 baby boys. In the prosperous farming district of Kurukshetra, there are only 770 baby girls to 1000 baby boys. Similarly, in the high-rent South-West of New Delhi the ratio is 845 baby girls to 1000 baby boys. In absence of foeticide and infanticide there should have been another 35 million women in India.

Some of the activists blame the wide prevalence of foeticide on the ready availability of the new technologies of pre-natal sex determination. To me this seems unjustifiable. Technology is a tool, how this is used depends on the social, cultural and political setting in a country. It is well known that because of the preference for a male child female infanticide has been practised widely in India for a long time. Infanticide of a baby girl at birth is quite common even today in the states of – Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Bihar, Orissa, Tamilnadu, and the Union Territory of Delhi. By the very nature of the problem accurate statistics is not available. However, some estimates suggest that as many as 10 million female infants may have been killed by their parents during the last twenty years. Girl infants are murdered by various inhumane ways. Sometimes they are poisoned, or smothered by wet towels, at other they are drowned in milk or fed on a considerable amount of salt or dry paddy husk. Some times they are buried alive. Such murders are generally not reported to the police because these are socially acceptable. Even when reported, the culprits are not convicted in the absence of witnesses.
In addition, abortion as a tool for family planning is acceptable, even promoted by the Government of India and is used commonly by the Indian elite. Under the circumstances, it is no surprise that female foeticide is readily acceptable. It is also true that material success has come to be seen as the dominant symbol of success in India. It does not matter how this success is achieved. In such an atmosphere the rate of dowry has been going up, making it difficult for many middle class families to afford the going rate of dowry. To the best of my knowledge dowry is outlawed in India but even the leading lights of India, both social and political, publicly accept or provide dowry in one form of another. Unfortunately, under the influence of the Bollywood, young brides expect a psychedelic marriage party which many middle class families can ill afford unless they have a clandestine source of income. Law enforcement is often weak or non-existent. It is in this climate that unscrupulous doctors and clinics use the technology for foeticide. In this context it is encouraging to note that apart from the recent government crackdown in various parts of the country as well as the government efforts to ‘adopt the girls’ some religious leaders, including Sri Sri Ravi Shankar of the Art of Living, Alahaj Syed Kiberia of Dargah Ajmer Sharif, the Jathedar of the Akal Takht, Giani Joginder Singh, and the head of the Pejawar Math in Udupi, Vishvesha Teertha Swami have taken a stand against the practice.

There is no doubt that since independence, the attitude towards female education and employment outside the home has been changing. As a result of positive discrimination many young women even from the underprivileged classes have succeeded as politicians and professionals inspiring others in their respective groups, Yet, because of poverty, ignorance and superstition, the traditional attitude towards women and children is changing only slowly. Primarily in rural areas, a female child is still discriminated against and is seen as a burden to the family. They are fed less and not as well cared for as their male siblings. While their siblings are sent to school and allowed to play, a female child often has to share domestic chores including the care of other siblings since the mother moves from one maternity to another. In most cases marriage is seen as the ultimate objective of female children in most population groups, even the educated upper and middle classes are not immune from such a tendency. Even female education is seen as a means to acquire a good husband. Even if the marriage of a young women is delayed in order to complete her education or compete for a job, neighbours or relatives start to gossip as if there was some kind of major shortcoming in the young women. Hence the parents desire to give away the daughter in marriage as soon as they can. In rural areas this desire translates into numerous child marriages. Child marriage is common in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Kerala. According to UNICEF, as many as 82 percent of girls are married before the officially prescribed age of 18.. Nearly one in seven girls are married even before the age of 13. An official survey in Rajasthan of 5000 women in the 1990s showed that as many as 56 percent were married before the age of 15;and 3 percent of them even before 5 years of age. Another 14 percent were married before they were 10 years old. In 2005 in a public interest litigation, the Forum for Fact Finding Development and Advertisement (FFFDA), an NGO submitted a research paper quoting the figures from the National Family Health Survey, said ‘the percentage of women who married before attaining the age of 18 years was as high as 71 percent in Bihar, followed by Rajasthan (68 percent), MP (64 percent), Andhra Pradesh (62 percent), UP (47 percent), Maharashtra (46 percent), Karnataka (45 percent), West Bengal (41 percent), Haryana (40 percent), Gujarat and Assam (37 percent). Percentage figures ranged between 10 to 24, in Himachal, Punjab, Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir and Tamil Nadu.’ .

Child marriage has meant that many child brides get pregnant at an early age with debilitating effect both for the mother and the child. According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-1) nearly 58 percent of adolescent girls had already commenced childbearing, with only 7 percent adolescent females using contraception. The survey suggested that fertility in the age group of 15-19 years accounted for 19 percent of total fertility in India. Almost a quarter of the age-group had already had a second child.
As the United Nations Fund for Population (UNFPA), points out, both for physiological as well as social reasons, girls aged 15 - 18 are twice as likely to die in child birth as those in their twenties. Girls under 15 are five times more likely to die in child birth as those in their twenties. According to the UNFPA, ‘about half of all deaths among children under age five occur in their first month of life. In developing countries, an infant’s risk of death during the first year is 30 per cent greater if born to a young mother than to an adult woman. Even if they survive, infants born to adolescent mothers are more likely to be premature and low birth-weight. Such survival risks are far greater in developing countries, given conditions of poverty, poor nutrition and poor availability of medical care.’

It is commonly known world wide that pregnancy-related deaths are the leading cause of mortality for adolescent girls in the age group 15-19 years. The chances of maternal death are almost three times higher in this age group than those in their twenties. Girls below 15 are 5 times more vulnerable than women in their twenties. Younger women also have a higher propensity to experience adverse outcomes such as higher foetal wastage in terms of miscarriage, still births and prior spontaneous abortions.

Medical evidence also suggests that the mother’s age has a considerable influence on the rate of infant deaths; the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) for adolescent mothers is 40 percent higher than for older mothers (107.3 and 75.8 per 1000 live births respectively) . In their study of organized slums of Mumbai researchers found a direct association between maternal age and low birth weight of the child, the incidence being 47 percent in the adolescent age group as compared to 34 percent in the 20-24 years age group and 29 percent in the 25-29 years. In a study of a semi urban population by Kushwaha et al., the incidence of low birth weight in age groups 15-17 years and 17-19 years were 81 percent and 56 percent respectively.