Female infanticide and falling status of women

by D. R. Chaudhry

PATRIARCHY in social organisation has been the dominant reality to define the nature of gender relations in human society that rendered it male-dominated in most parts of the world since the dawn of human civilisation. Much has changed since the primitive times but the male dominated ethos still holds sway. In spite of all the advances made in the field of woman emancipation, male hegemony is still the dominant reality.

The Divine Right of Kings theory gave unlimited arbitrary powers to the kings in Europe. The French thinker Rousseau in his Theory of Social Contract first of all, cogently challenged this. The liberative core of the ideas of thinkers like Rousseau, Voltair and others led to social churning culminating into the French Revolution in 1789. Liberty, Equality and Fraternity were the basic postulates of this great social upheaval. This finally led to the democratic form of governance in Europe that enabled the people to elect their own rulers through voting. However, equality, one of the moving ideas behind the social churning, eluded women for a long time and they acquired the right to vote quite late in several European countries after arduous struggle. Moreover, equality, in substantial terms, still eludes them.

The USA is one of the most developed and educated parts of the world. The egalitarian principle as symbolised in the gigantic Statue of Liberty in New York is supposed to be the moving force in American society. But women there are still clubbed with the socially deprived and marginalised sections like African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, etc. that go by the appellation of minorities. The policy of the affirmative action has been followed since the days of President Kenned. It gives preference to these groups in matter of employment, admission in educational institutions, allotment of government contracts, etc. Unlike India, there is no quota system and the Federal and state governments have devised their own methods to provide relief to these groups. In spite of all this, the American society is very much in the grip of white male domination.

Woman’s lot still continues to be at a disadvantage in the developed parts of the world like Europe and North America. The situation is much worse in developing countries. The problem has been further compounded in India where the powerful scriptural authority has been invoked to downgrade woman.

A shaloka in Rig Veda reads: “Women have unsteady brains. They are not trustworthy”. Manusmrity, a basic Brahminical text to define the cantours of social organisation, says: “A girl, a young woman or even an old woman should not do anything independently. In childhood, a woman should be under her father’s control, in youth her husband’s, and when her husband is dead, under her son’s. She should not have independence.” The Biblical idea of woman as a weaker vessel, open to temptation and Hamlet’s anguished cry over his mother’s perfidy equating woman with frailty (Frailty, thy name is woman) get much more concrete expression in the Hindu scriptures. Right from womb to the tomb, woman has to traverse this long journey under the male hegemony. Ram Charit Manas of Goswami Tulsidas has a powerful impact on the Indian psyche and therein woman has been clubbed with “Shudras, animals and the uncivilised who need to be thrashed.” The veil has been a symbol of ignorance and darkness that needs to be cast aside if one has to have the glimpse of the ultimate reality as stressed by Waris Shah and Mira. However, this veil (ghunghat) fell to the share of woman in India.

An attempt to understand the nature of gender relations can be facilitated by referring to the concept of the ideal womanhood. Sita and Draupadi are the two towering women in Indian mythology and folklore. Sita, the consort of Rama in Ramayana, is gentle, docile and submissive. She symbolises the purity of spirit as well as the body. Her unshakable fidelity and devotion to her husband marks her out as an exceptional woman. Draupadi, the consort of five Pandavas in the Mahabharata, stands in sharp contrast to Sita. She is aggressive, assertive and self-willed. She is conscious of her rights and fights valiantly for them. Her knowledge of the affairs of the world is remarkable and her debating and argumentative skill exceptional. She would not meekly submit to a man because he happens to be her husband.

Who should be the ideal woman out of the above two? Dr Ram Manohar Lohia who did seminal thinking on the issue of oppression in Indian society voted for Draupadi and it is difficult to discount his arguments. He wanted to start a debate on the topic that India’s ideal woman was Draupadi and not Sita or Savitri. The Indian society could not advance, argued Lohia, so long as half of its population was cast in the image of Sita. Crusaders for the downtrodden like Jyotiba Phule and Ramasamy Naicker exhorted women to come forward and assert their identity. Mahatma Gandhi laid due emphasis on woman uplift. However, in spite of all efforts made by numerous social reformers and thinkers, the depressed state of the Indian woman continues to stick out like a sore thumb, thanks to the inexorable operation of the patriarchal structures in society. Her image as an ‘abla’— a hapless creature — persist as conveyed by the well-known Hindi poet, Maithli Sharan Gupt: “Abla jeewan haai tumhari yehi kahani/ anchal mein hai dudh aur ankh mein pani.” (Milk in breast and tears in eyes. This is the story of hapless woman). Myths depict Indian woman as tender, passive and helpless while the male counterpart symbolises activism, sternness and physical valour. Myth represents reality in its heightened form and is not its replica. Often, it is at variance with social reality.

Haryana is primarily an agrarian society and its towns too are like villages with modern facilities. There is not a single town in the state that has the ambience and culture of a metropolitan centre. In such a social milieu, a woman’s sensibility is very much shaped by agrarian lifestyle. A Haryanvi woman is not a soft creature as reflected in the Indian myths. She does not very much burdened by scriptural authority and Brahminical value system. However, male-dominated ethos still holds sway in Haryana society as human relations are governed by patriarchal structures.

In a male-dominated social ethos, the quest for a male child is incessant while the female child is treated as a curse. Haryana folklore crudely depicts female child as highly unwanted. An example or two would suffice here. “Chhora mare nirbhag ka, chhori mare bhagvan ki” (One who loses a son is unlucky and one who loses a daughter is god-like), or “Dunia mein do garib batae, aek beti, aek bail” (There are two lowly creatures in the world: a daughter and a drought bull). This mindset is reflected in the declining social status of woman in Haryana.

Sex ratio is an important indicator of gender relations. South Asia is the least gender sensitive region in the world. The global ratio (excluding South Asia) of female to male is 106 while in South Asia there are only 94 women per 100 men. Haryana’s record is shocking in this respect.

As per 1991 census, the female-male ratio in Haryana is 865: 1000. The latest figure is much worse. It is the worst in the world and negates the popular image of Haryana as a modern, progressive state. Even sub-Saharan African countries like Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Ghana marked by famines, epidemics, civil wars and political instability, present a better record. Material advance is no guarantee of the healthy gender relations. Per capita income in Kerala is much lower than the one in Haryana but Kerala can match any advanced country in matter of indicators like sex ratio, access to education, health services etc.

Female infanticide in the form of foetal genocide is rampant in Haryana. Clinics conducting sex-determining tests have mushroomed all over the state. Now vans fitted with necessary equipment visit villages to destroy female foetus. The latest figures show an all-time low of 861 women per 1000 men in Haryana.

The gross distortion in sex ratio in Haryana has created an explosive situation. It is likely to have devastating consequences in times to come. The unsustainable imbalance in the sex ratio is fast reviving the outdated, hideous custom of ‘atta-satta’ (exchange of brides between two families) in some areas. The green revolution has reached its plateau and there is crisis in agriculture in the state. The lifting of quantitative restrictions on import of many items relating to agriculture and dairy as a consequence of the WTO regime and the gradual dismantling of the minimum support price mechanism for the agricultural produce by restricting the role of the Food Corporation of India would further compound the problem. The fragmentation of land holdings has rendered agricultural operations unviable in case of the most of the peasant families in the state. This has rendered the employment scene in rural Haryana too dismal for words. There is no industrialisation worth the name in the state to absorb the unemployed youth. The state government is rubbing salt into the wound by taxing the unemployed youth to bolster its financial position. An application form for the post of a constable has been priced at Rs 500. The unemployment coupled with dim prospect of matrimonial alliance has made the rural youth restive. This finds expression in the rising crime graph in the state. Several dozen young men from Baas village in Hansi subdivision are lodged in Hisar jail to face trial under different charges. When the Haryana Chief Minister visited the village as a part of the programme of ‘sarkar apke dwar’ (government at your door step) and asked for the demands, the village demanded setting up of sub-jail in their villages to obviate the trouble of going all the way to the district headquarters to meet their wards in the jail.

The UNO’s Fourth Conference on Women held at Beijing, the capital of China, in 1995 laid down nine major concerns for women like education, health, violence against women, women and property etc. Haryana’s rulers have been most insensitive about a girl’s share in the parental property. The Central Government passed the Hindu Succession Act in 1956, putting a daughter on a par with a son in matter of parental property. The Haryana Assembly passed a resolution in 1967 requesting the Central Government to change the Act. However, the then Indira government refused to oblige. A similar resolution was passed in 1979. The President of India withheld his assent to it.

The growing assertion of the khap panchayat in matter of marriage between consenting individuals in the recent past is enigmatic. Kangaroo courts are held and barbaric judgement like liquidation of the couple, tonsuring their heads in public, ostracising them from the community, depriving them of their right to property and residence in the village, etc. are passed if a particular marriage is suspected of violating certain norms thought to be sacrosanct by the panchayat mukhias.

A parallel judicial system is emerging in Haryana. It is again the girl who suffers most in this medieval system of justice.

There is an urgent need for gender-specific development paradigm to correct the pervasive gender inequities in our society. The hope of male generosity in this matter is misplaced as is evident from the fate being meted out to the proposed bill on reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and in state legislatures. Women have to work out their own salvation. They have to organise themselves and struggle, with active help from the enlightened section of the male population. No society can acquire dynamism if almost half of its population is kept in a state of servitude.