Can a father kill his baby girl? Is he so cruel? No, it’s the society which has made him do so. Had the society considered the baby boy and a baby girl equal, he would have done so? No.
Many customs and traditions we follow in a society are not written but they are transferred from one generation to another generation and followed verbatim without a logical thinking. The bias towards girl child is one such custom.
The possible reason towards this biased behaviour may be the exclusive cremation rites of parents given to the sons; the dowry system which makes bearing a girl child more expensive and virtually a big liability.
Considering all these gender roles, one can easily classify the profit and loss of bearing a child. From the above mentioned points it is evident that bearing a girl child is loss to loss strategy. So why girls? This is the very reason why many parents resort to female foeticide, infanticide, battering and discriminating girl child, inadequate diet and medical attention to girl child.
Now if this continues to happen, a day would come when we will see fewer women than men. The skewed sex ratio would see a worrisome picture in coming years if the same trend continues. The people who are killing their girl child today would not get girls around them to marry their sons. The picture may turn out to be more worse than shown in the movie ‘Matrubhoomi’ (directed by Manish Jha, released in 2003). Girls would become a rare entity. The practice of polygamy (many men marrying a single women) may creep in. Then, the condition of girls would become more worse than ever as shown in the movie. The situation would be appalling but quite possible with the declining sex ratio.
A women bears the baby boy or a baby girl with same amount of labour pain keeping him/her in her womb for nine equal months. But when he/she is born, he is accepted happily and she is rejected. Why so…. because she is a girl and many socio-economic conditions are applied on her.
She can be at par with he only when she would get the equal status in society as he has. She can only be saved when she has all the rights as he gets: the social rights, the legal rights, the economic rights etc. But as I said, the laws of society are not written but followed which is difficult to change in the patriarchal set up of society. Should we only wait and watch if it changes and be ready for the appalling situation of a society without women? The choice is yours.
(The write up is a reaction to the disappointing incidence of battering of little girls by their parents in Delhi and Bangalore recently.)
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Friday, March 4, 2011
A Fair Deal?
Female foeticide is still a fairer deal in India. Selection of female foetus and aborting it after prenatal sex determination, thus devoiding them from the very basic right to live before birth is not an issue in India. It’s a fair deal. And why shouldn’t it be? If you have to pay dowry beyond your capacity or they may be burnt alive; as you never know that the one dieing every 93 minutes in the dowry deaths may be your daughter. Long back one poster in Mumbai advertised “Invest only Rs.500 now & save your precious Rs.500,000 lakhs later”. How true? Rs.500 – too smaller an amount to do away with a liability; a future investment. Quite fairer to kill your daughter yourself than to let her be abused or killed by some other.
Someone rightly said “ Aaj har bap ka man bhari hai , jane kal kiski bari hai ??????”
It is scientifically known that women have more resistance to disease and longer life expectancy than men (under normal conditions) across all age groups. This implies that number of women would be more than the number of men. But India registers a sex ratio of 933 per thousand males as per current data available. It is estimated that there would be 47 million more men than women if the same situation persists. As Amartya Sen says “100 million girls are missing across the globe out of which 37 millions are missing in India”.This is an appalling situation. By 2020, there would be 40 million unmarried young men who would not be able to get brides for marriage according to the estimates.
Since ages, the status of women has been low in India. Islam permits polygamy with fewer rights to women. The Ramayana and the Manusmriti represent ideal women as obedient and submissive, subservient to father and the husband. Moreover, Hindu family gives exclusive rights to sons to perform the last rituals of the parents after their death. This is one of the main reasons for the prevailing son preference in India. Dowry is yet one of the biggest reasons, which has never been a custom but is being fuelled by higher level of consumerism and greed. All MTPs, PNDTs and other legislations stand handicapped in front of the strong social system.
This recalls me of a recent incident relating to one of my colleagues at my earlier office. She is a highly qualified, beautiful Punjabi girl. Her Barat returned back for want of dowry in a marriage; despite being a love marriage. The girl was in relationship with the guy for the past two years but the groom side made some demands at the day of marriage which could not be met on time. This is not a story of a small town or village of India, but the most urbanized city, Mumbai.
May I ask the guys why do they need a few lakhs in advance when they have an earning wife to feed them even if they don’t earn? Why the LCD & AC becomes more valuable than a caring wife who would be with you in all your adversity? Some may say it is the parents expectations from the bride side. So may I ask – are you so incapable to meet the demands of your parents. Pity on you guys!!!!
It is said that women are breaking the glass-ceiling, they are sharing equal space with men at every platform. But if it is the whole story then why is this story? Are women still the weaker sections of the society? Will they still be the victim of wrong rituals and customs without their fault?
Someone rightly said “ Aaj har bap ka man bhari hai , jane kal kiski bari hai ??????”
It is scientifically known that women have more resistance to disease and longer life expectancy than men (under normal conditions) across all age groups. This implies that number of women would be more than the number of men. But India registers a sex ratio of 933 per thousand males as per current data available. It is estimated that there would be 47 million more men than women if the same situation persists. As Amartya Sen says “100 million girls are missing across the globe out of which 37 millions are missing in India”.This is an appalling situation. By 2020, there would be 40 million unmarried young men who would not be able to get brides for marriage according to the estimates.
Since ages, the status of women has been low in India. Islam permits polygamy with fewer rights to women. The Ramayana and the Manusmriti represent ideal women as obedient and submissive, subservient to father and the husband. Moreover, Hindu family gives exclusive rights to sons to perform the last rituals of the parents after their death. This is one of the main reasons for the prevailing son preference in India. Dowry is yet one of the biggest reasons, which has never been a custom but is being fuelled by higher level of consumerism and greed. All MTPs, PNDTs and other legislations stand handicapped in front of the strong social system.
This recalls me of a recent incident relating to one of my colleagues at my earlier office. She is a highly qualified, beautiful Punjabi girl. Her Barat returned back for want of dowry in a marriage; despite being a love marriage. The girl was in relationship with the guy for the past two years but the groom side made some demands at the day of marriage which could not be met on time. This is not a story of a small town or village of India, but the most urbanized city, Mumbai.
May I ask the guys why do they need a few lakhs in advance when they have an earning wife to feed them even if they don’t earn? Why the LCD & AC becomes more valuable than a caring wife who would be with you in all your adversity? Some may say it is the parents expectations from the bride side. So may I ask – are you so incapable to meet the demands of your parents. Pity on you guys!!!!
It is said that women are breaking the glass-ceiling, they are sharing equal space with men at every platform. But if it is the whole story then why is this story? Are women still the weaker sections of the society? Will they still be the victim of wrong rituals and customs without their fault?
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Honour or Dishonour in killing your loved ones?
Give them education and they will change!
Make them economically independent and they will change!
But they have not!
Brothers shooting sisters,
Mothers strangling daughters,
Grand-mothers killing grand-daughters,
Fathers arranging the death of their sons and daughters.
Is this what our education and age-old tradition has taught us? We boast of our rich culture and tradition, but does our tradition teach us to follow such acts of killing our loved ones for the so-called honour just because she/he has tried to tie the knot with the person of other gotra, caste or community. And, they call it honour killing as if the act is highly justified and was done to save the honour of the family. How can killing of the daughter or the son brings honour to the family and marrying the person of other caste and community results in dishonour. You can allow them go out and study, wear jeans and T-shirt, eat burger and pizza but they cannot wear modern thoughts, cannot breach the non-sensible, illogical customs and traditions. What an honour in killing your loved ones you gave birth, bought up, you played with just for a reason that she/he is engaged or gets married to a person who does not belong to your caste or gotra.
How can we forget that we have the tradition of Swayamvara where the daughters were supposed to identify the husband of her choice. Be it the swayamvar of Ram-Sita, Nala-Damayanti, Prithviraj-Sanyogita. In such swamvaras, grooms from different castes were invited to participate and show their competence.
Why do we design some customs and traditions according to our whims and fancies without having any logic behind it. It seems our society is mentally sick and needs proper medication.
It is high time we should retrospect what we are doing and for whom. The motherhood, fatherhood, brotherhood and above all the humanity is at stake-‘Save it’.
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