Female infanticide  

“Mukti in 200” that's the board that has drawn a number of women to various popular and unpopular clinics. Is this the price for a girl's life? Or is Mukti an apt term to be used for female infanticide? Killing of an innocent girl child merely for what she is the most heinous crime that can be committed by her parents. There is undesirable ambiguity about nature and status of women in India . Some sacred scriptures give them an exalted status by saying the Gods dwell in Goddess as Durga, Kali, and Changj. A woman is believed to represent Shakti-power and, she can unleash unprecedented terror. She can protect or under different circumstances wreak vengeance. But I ask, where the aura, this fear is this reverence when the female child is being killed one after the other, incessantly even before she can breathe for the first time or before she can step into this world.  What is most disturbing is that the largely urban phenomenon of sex selection is trickling down to the villages. With the advent of science and technology, ft has become rather necessary to analyse and understand the causes of such a heinous act. Only day before yesterday, it was in the news that a man killed three of his daughters due to his inability to arrange dowry for their marriage. Our social Milieu in which dowry is a big burden on the girl's parents makes the parent feel that the poor girl, herself is a burden. 

Be it the social customs or the mental set up of the people, the crime is being committed openly. I personally fail to understand why there is such a strong desire for a son? Why are there prejudices against the girl to carry forward their family name? Today, when the girls have proved their mettle against all odds and have scaled glorious heights, it is absolutely disgusting to see people regarding them as second best. Sania Mirza, Kalpana Chawla, Sushmita Sen, Anju Bobby George have proved time and again that girls are no less capable than boys.  However, shocking evil and horrible practices as female infanticide have managed to attract the attention of social reformers. A special attention towards female literacy, treatment of widows, and denial of property rights to women is being paid under the pressure of social reformers. Female infanticide was banned in 1870, but without social consciousness and purposeful social action, the legislation remained unfruitful. To nip the evil in the buds, we must join hands together to fight for the right of the girls. We must, therefore, come forward to take a pledge to remove this social evil.  

(Source: The Pioneer, October 25, 2007)