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Where
is the Girl Child
Despite
a tough law, sex determination tests are the worst-kept secret in
Haryana, which has the lowest female-male ratio in the country
Rohtak,
April 14: Masculinity is alive and well in Haryana. You see signs
of it everywhere. In the graffiti of Hrithik Roshan biceps that
bloom prodigiously on walls of village gyms. Or in the old men who
sit outside tea shops on battered cane chairs, sipping tea and carefully
smoothening out their luxuriant moustaches.
But
the ultimate symbol of masculinity, it seems, is not in any of this.
It is in the sex of the child you bear. If it is male, you’re
okay. If you have at least two sons, it’s perfect. There’s
even a local phrase that goes: ek beta, kaani; bina beta, andhi;
do beta, sunaini — if you have one son, you are one-eyed; if
you have no sons you are blind, if you have two sons, well, that’s
a state of blessedness.
Home
truths like this have a habit of escaping the confines of spoken
speech. They become common sense and find their expression in the
realities of a state that was carved out of the erstwhile Punjab
State in 1966.
Here’s
one reality that the latest census highlighted. Although Haryana
has one of the fastest growing economies — its per capita domestic
product, at Rs 12,158 (1997), is just below that of Goa and Punjab
— it has today the lowest female-male ratio in the country:
861 women for a 1,000 men.
What’s
more, over the last 10 years, it has registered the sharpest decline
in the number of female children in the 0-6 age group in the country:
from 861 to 820.
Rohtak’s district commissioner R K Khullar, tries to provide
a more comforting perspective: ‘‘It’s easy to jump
to conclusions, but you must consider factors like male migration
into the state. Census officials tend to exaggerate. If the situation
was so bad, dowry would be the first practice to disappear. And
that hasn’t happened,’’ he says.
But
even he cannot duck the implications of the skewed sex ratio among
children. Finally he admits, ‘‘Of course there is no denying
that there is a marked preference for sons here, and the situation
is worsening.’’
Rohtak,
incidentally, is one of the districts in Haryana which has registered
a sex ratio lower than the state average, going by the figures of
the last census. No one knows this better than Jagmati Sangwan,
who teaches physical education at Rohtak’s University College.
Only
she knows the number of times local women’s groups have picketed
clinics, petitioned MLAs, and held statewide rallies on the issue.
‘‘Haryana, they say, is developed. But is this vikas (development)
or be-vikas (non-development)?’’ observes Sangwan, who
is also a Janwadi Mahila Samiti activist.
She
points out that 15 years ago there would be stickers pasted on trees
saying, ‘Spend Rs 5,000 today and save Rs 5 lakh tomorrow’.
There was even a clinic in nearby Sirsa that displayed aborted female
foetuses in glass jars.
Today,
all this has been declared illegal. There’s the officiously
termed nationwide law, the Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation
and Prevention of Misuse) Act 1994, to prove that.
The
ads and the glass jars may have disappeared but they are not needed
anymore. If there is one thing that is universally known, across
every caste and community grouping in Haryana, it is the fact that
sex determination test facilities are freely available.
Of
course, now that it is illegal, the test is more discreetly conducted
— and is more expensive too. A young doctor explains, ‘‘When
Bansi Lal had declared prohibition in Haryana, liquor was freely
available, but at a premium. It’s the same thing now. Earlier
you could have got this test done for a few hundred rupees. Now
you would have to pay something like Rs 800 for it. They don’t
put anything down on paper, of course, but who can stop anyone from
verbally informing someone about the sex of her unborn child?’’
Kamlesh,
another women’s activist, believes that things have never been
this bad. ‘‘Earlier there was a guilt about it. Now it
is seen as a matter of choice. People say it’s better to do
this rather than bring unwanted girls into the world. Doctors justify
it in the name of family planning.’’
Talk
to the gynaecologists in Rohtak and they will claim that they have
nothing to do with such tests. Persist in your conversation and
they will reveal that many of their colleagues are thriving on this
business of aborting female foetuses.
A
Rothak-based imaging expert puts it this way. ‘‘Every
day, I have to turn away at least three patients who come to me
and and say, ‘Test karna hain’.’’ He looks nervously
around him and whispers, ‘‘Just across the road from me
is this gentleman who is raking in cash doing this. Believe me,
in places like Panipat, they offer to tell you the sex of your child
after 10 weeks of pregnancy, even though it is a scientific fact
that there is no discernible organ development at this stage.’’
He
warms up to his theme, ‘‘Mark my words, the practice is
so widespread that we don’t kill cats and dogs as often as
we destroy female children.’’
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