The Bible says…God made Adam…

And it didn’t even take him long to figure out that things just weren’t right! So along came Eve! (Of course not in those exact same wordings) But what about an Eve for every Adam or aam ADAMi of India? Come data released by the census office and when are we Indians going to realize it? Why are we always as a Nation doing a bit something a bit too late?

The news papers are full of the newly-released census (2011) results. While it sure is welcome news for the Government of India to see a significant slowing of the population growth rate for the first time in nine decades, even better there has been an improvement in child sex ratio with Punjab being the most improved state with a 48-point increase over 2001, and Haryana has 11 more girls per 1,000 boys than it did in 2001, the question still remains: Is India doing enough to educate its masses? When will headlines such as these ‘Sense of Census 2011: Save the girl child’ or ‘Woman allegedly tortured for giving birth to a baby girl’, cease to exist in our country? Or when will come the day we see newspapers tell us ‘There has been an overall improvement in the Child sex ratio’ in our country!

Provisional data released by the census office for 2011 shows that the child sex ratio (0-6 years) has further declined to 914 girls for every 1,000 boys as compared to 927 in 2001 -the lowest since Independence. While the divide between the north and south has become even starker with Jammu and Kashmir‘s child sex ratio falling precipitously to 859, making it the third worst state after Haryana (830) and Punjab (846).  Isn’t it shocking to see NO state in the north now has a child sex ratio above 900? According to the census, the worst-affected areas in terms of sex ratio are western Maharashtra, western Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

While states such as Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Mizoram and Andaman & Nicobar have improved their child sex ratio over 2001, states like Kerala and Puducherry, which had improved their child sex ratios in 2001, have joined the rest of the country in a decline. However it is heartening to see India’s north-east having a much healthier attitude to girl children than the rest of the country, with Mizoram, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh have the highest child sex ratios among the states; Chhattisgarh and Kerala follow a little further behind. Even little areas such as Mewat, Haryana’s most backward district have the highest sex ratio in the state, though the state itself ranks as one of the lowest in the country!

Despite the several policies to protect the girl child, their number below six years of age has fallen sharply. While poor nutrition and healthcare is being blamed, isn’t it just our attitude that has raised female foeticide in this country? According to reports Female foeticide–the selective abortion of female foetuses–is killing upwards of one million females in India annually! Studies conducted by an Indo- Canadian team state that since the advent of ultrasound and detection technique for sex-determination 10 million female foetuses have been aborted in India.

Reasons why aborting female foetuses are both practical and socially acceptable in India range from social to economic, from having to pay a dowry to the future bridegroom of a daughter to sons offering security to their families in old age or performing rites for souls of deceased parents and ancestors.

Legally, while female foeticide is a penal offence and strict laws and penalties are in place for violators, these laws have still failed to tide off this abhorrent practice. ‘Saheli’, a Delhi based NGO, has reported that between 1978-82, nearly 78, 000 female foetuses were aborted after sex determination tests in the country. The numbers growing between 1986-87 alone, 30, 000-50, 000 female foetuses had been aborted. And between 1982-92, sex determination clinics multiplied manifold with nearly 13,000 sex determination tests estimated to have been done in seven Delhi clinics themselves! A blind eye is turned to ads such as “Spend five hundred rupees now, save five lacs later” (meaning dowry money)…Need we say more?

A land that worships Goddesses by various names such as Durga, Lakshmi, or Kali, folks songs such as

Prabhuji mein tori binti karoon
Paiyan Paroon bar bar
Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya Na Dije
Narak Dije Chahe Dar…

Oh, God, I beg of you,
I touch your feet time and again,
Next birth don’t give me a daughter,
Give me Hell instead…  are heard even today! (An old Folk Song From Uttar Pradesh)

Let’s act today so that in anther ten years, statements such as “Whatever measures that have been put in over the last 40 years have not had any impact on the child sex ratio,” as  conceded by Union home secretary G K Pillai need not to be repeated!