Bhairavi is a healthy baby girl born of proud Indian parents at six pounds and two ounces. Had she been conceived a year earlier she might have ended up dead. Another possible victim added to the 50 million “missing” women of India as described by the UN and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen.
The Delhi government’s cash initiative last year for families with a female infant seems to have at least saved one life but is it cause enough to celebrate just yet?
Revolution of Unequal Measure?
The 9600 Rupee (USD 210) government bonuses offered to parents for every new girl child born in the last year is touted as a critical measure leading to this year’s improved gender birth ratio. Coming from deplorable conditions wherein only five years ago only 860 female births took place for every 1000 male, the current year’s 1008 female to 1000 male birth ration can be considered a revolution.
“I wouldn’t call it a revolution, “says Santosh Pathak, a Statistical Officer at the Directorate of Economics and Statistics, “the spike is most probably a reaction to the cash incentives and less of a sociological indicator.” Even the United Nations Population Fund has unequivocally stated that “the figures are impossible” given that the mean “natural” ratio is not more than 965 females to every 1000 males.
But even as the government is preparing to set up cradles throughout municipal offices of the nation to save unwanted female infants, the survivors of generations past remember the futility of such government policies.
“I was asked to get rid of my baby when the doctors told my husband that I was going to have a daughter,” says Shanti Bhattnagar, 63, an office clerk, “I refused. That was nearly the end of our marriage.” The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 had just been passed and was being regularly flouted by citizens and doctors alike. “My husband was convinced by his sisters and our daughter was born.”
Considering how her daughter turned out, Shanti is more than jubilant. Not only did her daughter succeed in becoming a doctor, she is the first member of their family to go abroad. “A mighty feat for a girl, as some say,” remarks Shanti with a proud smile.
In Search of Conscionable Reform
The world has changed for women as evidenced by the UN’s far encompassing Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). With over 120 countries ratifying the charter and over thirty years in effect, the Convention still aspires to ensure absolute equality and conscionable accountability.
India is yet to accept all articles of the convention according to Sunila Abeysekera, the head of International Women’s Rights Action Watch (IWRAW) South Asia. Rightly arguing the futility of partial enforcement of rights the IWRAW is faced with the Indian government’s hesitation.
“What good is CEDAW if I can be forced into marriage?” says Sakina Suterwala, 19, a Muslim minority student of political sciences, “The government in its zeal not to infringe on minority rights is condemning half its constituency. We want to be women first, minorities later.”
The rising consensus among NGOs and the youth lies in the support of restructuring mindsets rather than manufacturing opportunities. “The women empowerment schemes of the last 30 years have been hogwash,” says Rama Nagarjun, a professor of sociology, “India is a stubborn country of traditions that have never quiet been washed off their past sins. The post-colonial attitude has only made things worse with a supposed ‘return to roots’ approach on the part of the rural population. And that is where most of these atrocities still happen. Who cares about Delhi?”
The government has provided opportunities in the form of free education, favourable loans and various medical facilities to women across the country. But when compared across the world, India has stepped down a rank since last year to 114 out of 134 in gender equality. The only sub-index where it shows strength, is ironically, political empowerment; active politics with inactive governance.
Nagarjun laments how any real change in the mindsets is yet to be seen. “Boys are still preferred and it isn’t so much right as it is fashionable for a girl child to have a successful education, only if it is to garnish her marital resume.”
But many still look beyond the government for answers.
“Our World, Our Future”
“When Indira Gandhi became the Prime Minister I cried”, says Julia De’ Souza, 68, a retired school teacher, “I was 25 and I believed I could do anything I wanted with my life. And I like to believe that I did.”
“I was lucky I suppose,” she says, “my husband allowed me to study; I had children, made a home but I never relinquished my spirit. I see too many bright girls doing that today. With all the opportunities they have before them I just can’t understand why...”
The city may have just responded to the economics of government policy in its statistical spike or perhaps this year might be the first of the many that marks some revelatory shift in the way that the Indian society behaves. Looking towards the future Julia’s 19 years old grand-daughter Stephanie is less subdued and a full measure more tenacious in her outlook on society.
“Women have changed, some in more ways than one. Be it in the bedroom or the board room, women of Delhi, and yes India have come a long way.” She says with fiery passion, “And it could have been much worse considering our heritage. But we have always been patient and beings of faith. I have faith that our world, our future will not be impeded by parochial traditions and economic burdens.”
But as is the case when we consider matters of faith, it is but in the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen, that we may find the millions of missing women making their return in the generations of tomorrow.