Image by Zuhair Ahmad via Flickr
When and how did it all begin? Writers have drawn references from Atharva Veda, which states, “Let a female child be born somewhere else. Here, let a male child be born.” As far what Manu Shasthra says about the futility of being a woman, the less discussed the better.
Research on female foeticide in India reveals how deep-rooted misogyny is and how mechanical the killings have become. As if the traditional methods of killings weren’t efficient enough, we now have modern ultra-sound scanning machines that swat foetuses like flies. These killer machines have so easily outfoxed the officials and the NGOs (some of them genuine), that it seems the latter are fighting only to maintain a fiction of hope. Their marginal success hardly measures up to the speed and efficiency with which the killers march ahead.
And we all know why the scene is so macabre. The same socio-economic problems, the same inferior status lent to womanhood by religious texts with garbled incantations muttered through clenched lips. The same obsession called son-preference that pervades every book and corner of the society like mephitic air.
Deafened by the din of their own sins, the perpetrators act with a messianic spirit because they think the best way to relieve a girl child of all her impending life issues is not to eliminate the issues. But the life itself.
That’s the reason why economic status of the killers is hardly in question. Because this poverty is one that emanates from their souls!
Related articles
- Female foeticide/infanticide in India-2: traditional methods of killing babies
- Female foeticide in India (part 1): Murder in the womb
- Heart of darkness
- “The Aishwarya effect”: why media forgets feats of lesser mortals?
ENDLESSLY GREEN 