PREJUDICE AGAINST WOMEN FEMALE LIVES EXPENDABLE ASSET IN INDIAN SOCIETY

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33815, 11 April 1975, Page 8

PREJUDICE AGAINST WOMEN FEMALE LIVES EXPENDABLE ASSET IN INDIAN SOCIETY

SU NANDA K. DATTA-RAY,

Y. :r. CaxtttM. /or the Observer

An official report on the status of women, recently presented to t Indian Parliament, has come to the disturbing conclu-ion that Indi society regards "female lives as an expendable asset. This is a curious indictment of a country that has been go'ern by a woman, Mrs Indira Gandhi, for about a decade; lias entrusted r State administrators to female chief ministers: and boasts any number high-ranking women politicians. scientists. civil servants and dip "in: But the paradox only exposes the ' ast gulf between the urban elite, which talented and sophisticated women enjoy equal rights and opp< tunities with men. and villages where old ways die hard and wives ai daughters are still looked upon as chattels.

Since 80 per cent of India’s population lives in • the countryside, the rural at [ titude must, pe taken to offei I the more accurate index to [national thinking. It also influences official policy as is i evident in a popular poster distributed by New Delhi's massive birth control campaign. The illustration shows a brilliantly spotted leopard languidly stretched out along the branch of a tree, the legend beneath reading: “One leopard is stronger than 12 jackals. One son is better than 12 daughters”. Since,: according to a recent survey, an Indian couple must • have 6.2 children before it l [can reasonably expect a boy. ' to grow to maturity, such 1 , persuasion not only makes •! ; for larger families — thereby defeating the campaign’s purpose — but also subjects' 'unwanted girl babies to' neglect. Drawing attention to this: • prejudice, the high-powered [ committee which has been' ; investigating women's rights; [offers it as “the only rea-[ j sonable explanation for the • declining sex ratio observed [ to persist over several' decades”. Two years ago: there were 932 women to' 1000 men; today’s ratio is I 930:1000. Even more alarming is the' disclosure that the nutrition' level for girls is consid-l erably lower than for bpys; and that female mortality at! birth and again in the 15 to: 35 age group, which is thej child-bearing stage, is ex-1 cessively high. But once a woman crosses her 40th I year, her chances of survival are as good as, if not better than, a man’s. This is hardly surprising in a culture that places an extraordinarily high pre-; mium on male children. But the bias is not as explicitly; manifest today as u. the, nineteenth century when • Mountstuart Elphinstone, a! British, Governor of Bombay, I came to the conclusion that' one-third of the girl babies! in his province were [ throttled at birth. His 1817; Infanticide Fund succeeded, through a system of fines,: and rewards, in encouraging! female births and altering: the demographic pattern within 150 years. That pro-' cess was later repeated; among the warlike Rajput;' tribes of western India by; another British administrator' called Sleeman. Deliberate infanticide is* now ruled out, but the sexratio — expecially in agri- 1 cultural states like Punjab." Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and* Bihar — could still owe;something to design. Social; 1 workers in these regions [1 suspect nutritional and emo- 1 ’ tional discrimination. They; l complain that a peasant just! l i ,

ll does not think it necessary • * to send for the doctor if hi: ■ girl child is ill: a boy ever i! in well-to-do homes, usually receives the best food anc -I care that his parents can af -1 ford while his sister might r often have to make do with s’his leavings. There is a sound economic i basis for this apparent calijlousness. Traditional preju--1 ' dice, which is seldom irrational, has been reinforced -by a modern egalitarian >t ethic. While marriage dow--I'ries for girls, though theo- ■ retically banned since 1961. continue to be a severe - drain on modest resources, t recent inheritance laws [ insist on a daughter’s equal • rights to the paternal acres. ii Since no one in the Indian ;; interior dreams of making a ~ will, this means that a con- ; solidated family holding is /fragmented, after the /owner's death, not only 'among his sons, but also ,; among sons-in-law who might belong to other social , units or even to distant villages: a prospect that is un- ; likely to appeal to the conservative peasant cultivator I with a strong sense of property and kinship. Extra hands I In the outcome, daughters have become even more undesirable — except, perhaps, in tea gardens and coffee [plantations where female [ labour is highly prized — jever since India was pledged ;to a modern socio-economic [ system. Factory workers in [ the Faridabad industrial : complex near New Delhi i argue that every male child means an extra pair of working hands. It also! means more fields to till [ since another new law' directly relates a family’s • I agricultural property to its; -size. In addition, sons offer [old-age security to parents' [in a country that is not yet • able to afford social welfare 1 [amenities; a daughter’s ob-l [ligations end with marriage' [even though it might take [her father and brothers' • years to pay off the debt incurred for lavish wedding ■ feasts and substantial' [presents. [ The problems implicit in, such conditions are exhaus-. Itively discussed in a report: which merely confirms the [fact that, nearly' three' [decades after India became! [independent, women are still; I thought to be men’s inferi- [ ors. j The law, when not actual-! |ly counter-productive a> in■ [the case of inheritance, isi [clearly unable to make any! ;impact on a problem of this! .magnitude. Polygamy,’ Though legally forbidden, is practised in many regions;' divorce can mean social; ostracism and maintenance! orders are often ignored; the caste system, which also has! been outlawed, continues to| govern marriages which are still largely arranged. Listing these failures, the team has made a number of' recommendations which are! intended to protect women’s, rights and punish men who; discriminate against them, j They range from the auto-j matic dues from the salaries ; of divorced husbands and! more liberal laws on abor-.i tion to vocational training?

x i for girls and ihe provision is, of creches for working ■n | wives. 85 per cent of wh •■ ly have now to drag sma id children to their jobs f- These proposals, enshrined it in a voluminous document hi of several hundred pages. are now being studied by ic the federal Ministry of Edu I- cation and Social Welfare i-i which commissioned the m t-'quiry. But it is doubtful ff d legal reform alone can alter n a way of thinking. ,J No benefits As the committee admit. . e women are now unable to ’•'benefit from social legisia s tion that already exisis tl partly because they simply are not aware of their guarn anteed rights, and partly bea 'cause invoking the law is an ■jexpensive and long drawns ■ out process. The thousand e female hand-cart pullers, for y instance, are all illiterate o and can hardly go to court o More than 70 per cent of J them live in mud and thatch - hovels and another 12 per • cent sleep on the pavement ■ The 6 per cent or working r women who are in organised - industry might well be mib j tant trade unionists, but i their concern does not ex ' tend to the other 94 per cent 6 employed in private homes The solution to this grim problem lies in improved j! medical facilities and, in the long term, in education. The [I official infant mortality figj[ure of 140 a 1000 births is , thought to be "on the low j side,” not taking into j account epidemics that j flourish on a base of underj nourishment. Pregnancy is f an equally dangerous bperJiation in villages with only I! an untrained rustic midwife ‘lto assist at the birth; ex- . j cessive child-bearing further [•shortening a woman's life. !: But women cannot be ex- ' pected to assert their rights ’! if they remain ignorant of "them. The report says that i less than 7 per cent in the Jl5 to 25 age group have . been to school; the figure for those over 25 years ’ being under 25 per cent. The [ number of illiterate women [ increased sharply from only 61 million in 1961 to 215 million in 1971. The relevance of education to social awareness was evident in a West Bengal study [jon family planning which ; i found tht only 3 per cent of ’[illiterate couples used con- ; traceptives, while use went up to 7 per cent for semi- | illiterates. Acceptance was 150 per cent where one ! spouse had been to middle 'school and as high as 75 per (cent if the husband or wife ; had been to college. A further survey established a ! more direct equation beI tween birth control and the [mother’s education. Women's education ob- [ viously holds the key to .emancipation, but with a [ female literacy ratio of only : 18.44 per cent this must necessarily be a long grind. In | the meanwhile, the Comjmittee on the Status of Women complains that conI cern for women and their [ problems, which received an i impetus during the moveI ment for Indian independence, “has *uffered a (decline in the last two 'decades.” — O.F.N.S. I Copyright.