India’s Infanticide: A Sad Story

The phenomenon of female infanticide in India is not new, but to what extent? It’s likely accounted for millions of gender-selective deaths throughout history. As John-Thor Dahlburg of The Los Angeles Times points out, “in rural India, the centuries-old practice of female infanticide can still be considered a wise course of action.”

The phenomenon of female infanticide in India is not new, but to what extent? It’s likely accounted for millions of gender-selective deaths throughout history. As John-Thor Dahlburg of The Los Angeles Times points out, “in rural India, the centuries-old practice of female infanticide can still be considered a wise course of action.”

In 2011 India counted only 914 girls aged six and under for every 1,000 boys. If you compare the number of girls actually born to the number that would have been born had a normal sex ratio prevailed, then 600,000 Indian girls go missing every year. The “missing girls” are usually aborted, shortly after the parents learn of their sex. A short drive from Kotla to Nuh, a typical trading town, shows how.

Ultrasound scans were banned in India in 1994 and are sex-selective abortions illegal, but the practice continues.

However The Economist reported: ‘The main road is dotted with clinics that boast of ultrasound services. Requests for a scan to check the sex of a fetus are turned down at “Bharat Ultrasound” and “City Care Hospital”, but a nervous medic at one does recommend a place that would do it.’

In India, parents prefer to have sons, especially in rural areas that make up most of the country and were poverty is rife “killing baby girls ‘is no big sin’” said Dahlburg.

According to census statistics, “From 972 females for every 1,000 males in 1901 … the gender imbalance has tilted to 929 females per 1,000 males. … In the nearly 300 poor hamlets of the Usilampatti area of Tamil Nadu [state], as many as 196 girls died under suspicious circumstances [in 1993] … Some were fed dry, unhulled rice that punctured their windpipes, or were made to swallow poisonous powdered fertilizer. Others were smothered with a wet towel, strangled or allowed to starve to death.”

India Mortality Country Profile

A Reason Not To

Horrified to discover a disproportionate number of boys in the Indian village he was born, Cheshire businessman Kulwant Singh Dhaliwal took a big step and set up a charity which gives families incentives to keep their baby girls. In the rural community of 3,000 people, 70 percent of the children were male. It was clear foeticide was to blame.

He has now taken his mission to residents in Bir Rarke in the state of Punjab.

Mr Dhaliwal adopted the village and asked families not to abort their girls.

 “I told them all I would look after your daughters, I would pay for the education and health care, I would ensure that they had jobs and when the time came I would get them married off.”

Part of the charity’s aim is to support families who might face the extra costs of raising a daughter. Parents in rural India blame the dowry system as a reason for aborting girls; not being able to afford to marry them off.

“One scheme gives cash to the mother if she gives birth in hospital as a way of tracking babies, another will give 100,000 rupees to a child who reaches the age of 18 and completes her education.”

Since he started there project there are now more girls born in the village than boys.

“Money is a big incentive and many parents should realise that girls don’t always cost money, they could actually provide much needed funds for the family in later life”.

The Rise of India

Over 400,000 newborns die within the first 24 hours of their birth every year, the highest anywhere in the world, a study by an international non-government organisation, ‘Save the Children’ declared. Two million children under five years of age die—one every 15 seconds—each year in India, the highest anywhere in the world.

According to the NGO, despite a decade of rapid economic growth, India’s record on child mortality at 72 per 1,000 live births is worse than that of neighbouring Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world.

The situation begs the question: As India’s economy flourishes and becomes more successful, will gendercide stop? Or at least go down?

Sadly, no. The wealth gap between urban India and rural India is widening and the country’s economy doing well as a whole doesn’t account for what happens in the villages, and the slums.

Liz Zuliani

EconomyWatch.com