The other day I was flipping through a daily when I came across an anecdote of a moribund baby girl, bitten and battered by her father only because she was a girl. The report didn’t take me by surprise after all such predicament are a common happening today, but it did saddened me reflecting at the plight of that little girl.
The savageness of our society towards the girl child is harrowing. Once I happened to give a short delivery in a gathering where I spoke about the plight of girl child in India. In it I inquired if it was our society’s cultural norms and tradition that prompted atrocious acts to be meted against our girl children. At the end of the gathering the chief guest grabbing the opportunity retorted to my interrogation saying that our society gives the top place to the feminine gender and that the society’s norms and tradition has no linked with the plight of the girl child. Time and again I pondered upon his riposte and the more I thought, the more I felt he was erroneous. Of the many articles and write ups I had come across the correspondence of these writings is that it all concludes criticizing our society’s social practice like dowry and the patriarchal system as the prime impetus for all the complexities.
Today, the nefarious practice of female feticide and infanticide is a subject that India needs to address as a matter of extreme urgency. Incidences of lifeless foetuses lying open in lakes and public spaces are not news anymore. Such ignominious activities are reported mainly from the economically sound states like Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan. Years back our country’s capital was also voted as one of the unsafeist place for women in the world according to a poll conducted by a leading international daily. The existence of such iniquitous practice eventually serves as the most ideal evidence of how our society pictures the lesser sex.
The 2011 census reports our country’s sex ratio at an alarming 940 females per 1000 males. Worse is the case for states like Haryana, Delhi, and our very own neighboring sisters state Sikkim which has 877,866 and 889 females for every 1000 males. Of late, the government has been trying effortlessly in resolving these issues by setting up schemes and loans for upliftment of women and girl child status. They even went to the extent of declaring the decade of 1991-2000 as “the decade of girl child”. But the dawn of 21st century showed no improvement to the problem. It went from worst to extreme. Now it is the rich and the middle class who rushes for the sex determination test. When the pre-eminent set of the society displays such actions than there is nothing more to say at all. History has it that some villages of the Rajput clans in Rajasthan hadn’t born a baby girl for a decade or two.
Reasons are varied for the elimination of baby girls. Some being as stated by many couples that bringing up a girl is pointless and a burden for the family as she has to be married off and along with her she drains away the family fortune through her dowry. This can also be termed as one of the many reasons why there is a gaping hole between the country’s literacy rates of females (65.46%) and males (82.14%).
The need of the hour is to educate the minds that despise the lesser sex and to create an environment where our daughters can grow without fear. Lately, it has been very impressive to see public figures like Amir Khan and Priyanka chopra standing up for the cause. We too as an individual can our bit to save our disappearing daughters. We need a change today. And change is what those little girl’s cries for today. She’s there struggling for her life inside her mother’s womb. Now, her life is in your hand. So the question is - Will you be the change???
BY:-
D HINGNAM ZELIANG
SAINIK SCHOOL PUNGLWA
