“…aur un masoom ladkiyon ke muh me motichoor ke laddoo jab tak thoos diye jaate hain, jab tak unki saansein na ruk jayee (…and laddoos are stuffed into mouth of female infant till she loses her breath and her little curved fingers go lifeless…)”
As soon as I heard these lines, a feeling of deep angst and hatred ran across my body. I couldn’t continue and came back to my room with those lines still echoing loudly in my ears. Unable to control myself, I just started browsing to get more thoughts on female infanticide / feticide. Though I was aware of incidents like strangling, dumping in garbage bins, drowning her, burying her alive., this one was most barbaric of all! I had only one question after this – WHY?
I somehow was startled to know:
“An estimated 2,000 unborn girls are illegally aborted every day in India” – United Nations
i.e., approx 7 lacs annually. And these are only feticide figures; there is hardly any data in India about infanticide. Though a gender bias is present in one form or the other in every nook and corner of the world but it hardly takes a gory picture as in Asian countries (India primarily due to socio-cultural reasons and China due to its 1-child policy). Some more weird examples are:
- Ancient Greece and Rome, "exposing" the female infant -- to let her die.
- Jews, flogging of father for having a girl child.
- British Monarchy, 21- gun salute for prince but 10 for a princess.
- Dutch proverb, "A house full of daughters is like a cellar full of sour beer."
- China, daughters are called as "maggots in the rice"
And mind you, the evil is equally present across all strata of society. The ever evolving medical science has just made it easier to perpetrate such acts. Infamously, once when Mohammad Ali was asked about his children, he replied, “One boy and seven mistakes”. M speechless!
I will not dwell either on more figures or the reasons for such practices (both of which I assume are well-known in Indian context) but what is disturbing is that it is not even considered a crime and rarely do culprits get convicted!! In today’s time of hyper media activism, there is surely some sensational reporting, some harsh conviction of the accused and soon the news dies down and the cycle goes on. Surprisingly, most of the times female are accused of bearing a girl child (which is away from scientific reality as proven) and hence she is supposed to perpetrate the crime willingly or un-willingly
Though a lot of efforts have been made by Govt and society, and there have been obvious reduction in such crimes (compared to a period where whole lot of such things was just un-reported). Perhaps we can have a provision for legal recourse against her parents for any bias (as being done for work-place). And secondly I just wish that feticide is also dealt as seriously as homicide. Let her atleast breath the fresh air, let her atleast see you with her twinkling eyes…and let her atleast have the right to live.
Posted by
Bachchan
