On Female Infanticide in India
Monday, 5. March 2007 - 8:48 PM
The image of India as caste-cow-curry seems to have receded a bit despite the exertions of Indian gatekeepers of the West to perpetuate it. Of the three, the first is definitely the most favourite stick to beat India. However, there exists a far more powerful stick used with increasing ferocity: female infanticide.
The brutes who continue this abhorrent practice must be skinned alive in public. It is not difficult to trace the origins of female infanticide.
A few ancient Hindu scriptures do mention that only sons are entitled to kindle the funeral pyre of parents. But how far do we go back to trace the origins of this undue emphasis on males as the be-all end-all of a family?
The earliest record of Hinduism’s philosophical, cultural, and social foundations is undoubtedly the Vedas. So, do we have any reference to the male-first commandment there? Nope. On the contrary, we have numerous instances to the contrary. The Rg Veda for example, holds women in very high regard. Today’s ultra-feminists need to have at least a cursory look at what it says. Most Vedic suktas (verses/aphorisms/hymns) were composed mostly by male sages, which would give the impression of a male-dominated society. Yet that does not automatically prove that women were relegated to the kitchen and bedroom. We have the lofty example of Anasuya, wife of Sage Atri, who was highly respected as one who had conquered/free of jealousy. Incidentally, that’s the meaning of the word, “Anasuya.” Women like Vishvavaraa, Vaak, Ambhruni, Ghoshaa, Shachi, Gaargi, Maitreyi were themselves suktakaraas (composers of hymns).
So, a Wikipedia article on infanticide reveals only part of the picture when it says:
…in India’s patrilineal and patriarchal system of families is that having at least one son is mandatory in order to continue the familial line, and many sons constitute additional status to families. The final factor of female deselection is the religious functions that only sons are allowed to provide, based on Hindu tradition. Hindu tradition says that sons are mandatory in order to kindle the funeral pyre of their late parents and to assist in the soul salvation.
That doesn’t really explain the cause for female infanticide. If you try and attribute the cause for female infanticide to our scriptures/sastras, you are guaranteed to fail miserably. Not a single Hindu scripture asks you to kill an unborn child–isn’t it strange that a philosophy that urges everybody to respect all forms of life–plant, insect, animal, human–would somehow enjoin its adherents to kill a foetus? On the contrary, a famous sukta in the Mahanarayana Upanishad says, bhroona hatyaam vaa ye te ghnanti–forgive me/save me from the sin of killing a foetus. The scriptures list out several “deadly” sins: killing a Brahmin, a foetus, parents, warriors, teachers, and so on.
What explains it is time and a host of political, economic, social, and changes. It is relevant to mention dowry as a contributing factor to female infanticide. Most families that practise female infanticide dread the fact that they’d have to cough up huge sums as dowry at the time of the girl’s marriage. That in today’s condition is the only plausible explanation for female infanticide. That, majority cases of female infanticide occur in the poor/low income families is also a crucial point to note. Tie this with the dowry element to derive the obvious conclusion. To attribute only religious injunctions as the cause of female infanticide–as the Wikipedia entry has done–is speaking from ignorance at best or being fraudulent at worst. Because several Hindu religious rituals compulsorily require the wife to be present.
Yet, this was always not the norm. We also have numerous instances of “reverse dowry” where the groom was (is still in some parts of India) expected to pay dowry to the bride.
Nor is female infanticide limited to India alone. The same Wikipedia entry also mentions Pakistan, China, and South Korea. From this report on China,
A body of Chinese poetry, The Book of Songs, believed to date from 1000-700 B.C., offers this advice to new parents:
When a son is born
Let him sleep on the bed,
Clothe him with fine clothes.
And give him jade to play with. …When a daughter is born,
Let her sleep on the ground,
Wrap her in common wrappings,
And give her broken tiles for playthings.
Now, show me ONE sloka/verse/injunction in the Hindu tradition that resembles this by at least a fraction.
Yet, this is rarely reported in the NYT or other giant opinion-shapers. We’re back again to the question of bias. Like dowry and caste, reports of Indian female infanticide are blown out of proportion more often than not, deliberately. This is an area where Professional Milkers of Human Misery–the NGOs, can make serious money. Their favourite justification for said milking: a random Sanskrit verse or passage that has a male bias –which anyway the conscience-stricken donors won’t understand–and the dollars keep flowing in.
Female infanticide is truly brutal and should stop immediately. But that won’t happen by (falsely) blaming Hindu scriptures. Is it the fault of the scriptures that others misinterpreted them to mean that giving birth to a girl child was bad? Clauses that said females were forbidden from certain rituals were twisted to mean that the female sex itself abominable. A few individuals went the next logical step ahead: nip it in the bud. Yet these selfsame individuals worship the Devi. What explains that? I can raise hundreds of such seemingly-contradictory questions but that’s for another post.
Condemn our Shastras to your heart’s content but that’ll not stop these despicable murderers. Few questions to the Professional Milkmen/women:
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Have you taken pains to read, understand, and explain the original doctrines to those who commit female infanticide?
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Have you pointed the fact that the doctrines actually condemn the practice of bhru hatya (foetus-killing)?
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What is your track record of actually changing mindsets, preventing further incidents, and genuinely making a difference?
I’m open for debate.
PS: Does that help, Tushar?
Cross-posted on Desicritics.
6. March 2007 - 4:47 PM
Yep, true. Sad to see pseudo-intellectuals who dont know a thing about Hinduism trashing it for all of India’s ills.
Practices like female infanticide and sati are social problems, and not because Hinduism ordains these.
F**king idiots !!
7. March 2007 - 12:13 AM
“That, majority cases of female infanticide occur in the poor/low income families is also a crucial point to note.”
Actually Sandeep, that’s one of the things I doubt, because the communities with the highest female infanticide are the Sikhs followed by the Jains, both communities are by no means impoverished when compared with say a state like Bihar which is mostly Hindu, I think the opposite is true, female infanticide is the most rampant in communities that are the richest, it seems as if someone gets “educated” and becomes more wealthy they become more greedy, certainly Dowry murders which are rampant in big cities occur less in the villages.
Check the male female ratio by religion here:
http://www.censusindia.net/religiondata/index.html
7. March 2007 - 7:19 AM
Thanks a lot Sandeep, I see the perfect need to defend the scriptures from leftist defiling. However, my question was more about the actual practice. And Sandeep no its not really blown out of proportion if any of the statistics are correct. Sure they could be. But if we believe the stats, then it is a huge problem, leave aside the communist and jihadi media nonsense.
7. March 2007 - 12:37 PM
Harish,
I partially agree. And please, Sikhs and Jains are Hindus.
>>it seems as if someone gets “educated†and becomes more wealthy they become more greedy, certainly Dowry murders which are rampant in big cities occur less in the villages.
this is a little contradictory: India has an overwhelming number of poor people and although your point on educated people murdering for dowry is well-taken, even a cursory reading of dowy death reports in the papers point to the low-income families. And two, my post was focussed on female infanticide, and I mentioned dowry as one of the main causes for it. The highest incidence of female infanticide in India is Tamil Nadu.
Thanks.
7. March 2007 - 12:41 PM
Tushar,
>>However, my question was more about the actual practice. And Sandeep no its not really blown out of proportion if any of the statistics are correct.
The actual practice” is basically a perversion. Ã repeat, you cannot trace female infanticide or even male-female superirority to ANY scripture or doctrine in Hinduism. On the contrary, all scriptures uphold the Female. If you pervert a noble doctrine and then blame the doctrine for your perversion, how does that work?
7. March 2007 - 1:18 PM
Harish, Sandeep,
I suppose we never come to know about what the poor do ? But we do come to know of the actions of the upper classes.
Like everyone knows that the poor consume drugs too. But the students in Pune are in the limelight… not the ones who consume drugs near Matunga/Parel railway tracks in Mumbai…
7. March 2007 - 8:49 PM
A little unrelated to your post..
A while ago I actually read this crap about why women should not recite the gayatri mantra – which according to thisperson increases the testesterone levels and women will grow facial hair and won’t be able to breast feed etc. While in the vedic age women actually had the upanayanam done so that they could learn the vedas like their male counter parts.
8. March 2007 - 9:43 AM
first of all, it is sex-selective abortion, not infanticide. If we were to give the number of aborted fetuses in western countries with extrapolations of all the missing children, it would also be very shocking. Wait, anti-abortion nuts already do that and nobody takes them seriously.
Second, it is the upper classes who bought into the nehruvian population control propaganda. Sex selective abortion is just a consequence of such secularist propaganda. Same problem dynamic is seen in China.
Another consequence of the population control propaganda is the muslim demographic bomb. I would not be surprised if excess mulla growth was the original nehruvian intent behind population control.
about the solutions:
Someone simply needs to tell the Jats and other affected communities/castes:
IGNORE ALL THE NEHRIVIAN LIES ABOUT POPULATION CONTROL> ANY EXCESS POPULATION WILL BE EXPORTED TO THE DYING WEST.
Sex-selective abortion will be history. Guaranteed.
This is not about Sikh or Hindu views on women. Sikhs have unisex names. Hindus worship Goddesses.
8. March 2007 - 9:47 AM
“I partially agree. And please, Sikhs and Jains are Hindus.”
I go by what those communities think, maybe the majority of Jains still see themselves as Hindu but most Sikhs do insist that they are not Hindu so why insist that they are.
“The highest incidence of female infanticide in India is Tamil Nadu.”
But isn’t that contrdicting the evidence, going by the sex ratios we can see that Punjab has one of the most skewed up sex ratios (much more than TN).
Here is the link that lists the state wide sex ratio between the 0-6 age group:
http://www.censusindia.net/results/provindia2.html
For Tamil Nadu its 939 while for Punjab its 793.
8. March 2007 - 11:02 AM
Sowmya,
I read that link and I think it is pretty obnoxious. As I mentioned in my post, women were treated with immense respect in the Vedic period, upanayanam and all.
3. May 2007 - 12:56 PM
Sandeep,
Excellent article!
But I think neither religious nor social factors are that important regarding this brutal practice.
If you see, all the religions were (some are) biased against women, only in practice & not in scripture generally.
I think that the problem is generally with the male mindset of having domination & control. And certainly, women are nevr together to fight for their cause. It is the mother-in-law who asks for dowry.
And speaking of dowry, it was just a gift given to the son-in-law, not a compulsion.
Scriptures ask to marry a good women, even if she belongs to a poor family.
1. August 2007 - 5:50 PM
thanku u .so much ur website helped me a lot in my projects thanks a lot
13. September 2007 - 3:15 AM
Sandeep wrote “The highest incidence of female infanticide in India is Tamil Nadu.”
I asked myself why this is so and found the reason from a person in the census department in the state. The reason was that Tamil Nadu was the state that was tracking it with some sincerety. It was suspected that Punjab had the worst female infanticide with their sex ratio being so skewed. It was supposed to be a combination of infanticide and abortion after finding the sex, something not allowed in India too.
8. February 2008 - 5:31 PM
Actually sandeep Tamilnadu is the only state which deliberates the subject matter very transparatly through discussions in village panchayaths and educate the rural community particularly women through print,visual and street dramas explaing the evil of female infanticide. Due to this continous effort the ratio is slightly higher 986/1000 than other affected states.
10. March 2009 - 12:06 AM
The Atharvaveda says, “The birth of a daughter, grant it elsewhere, here grant a sonâ€.
This is from our Indian Scriptures. this clearly shows a preference for the male child.
11. March 2009 - 8:49 AM
@ Namita
Attributing a quote to Vedas without specifying which sloka it is from and what is its context is not helpful in understanding, it will merely advance the cause of those who propagate lies against indian civilisation.
12. May 2009 - 10:36 PM
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12. September 2009 - 9:12 AM
As a guy, it would only be honest to confess that I have read a lot of Jain literature, almost became a shadhu while I was young, and have come across countless shlokas prefering males over females. Too many to mention. Scriptures are full of them. That is main social problem that Mahavira took an issue with. And no Jain I know think of themselves as Hindu. They think of them as Jain or often Gujaratis.
12. September 2009 - 11:35 AM
@ansh
The problem with many Indians today is that they buy propaganda of sheep brains like you and think that they are different from Hindus and Hinduism, but they forget that the semetic cults of Islam and Xtianity think otherwise. The best definition of Hindu ever given was by Babar and according to him, a person who isnt a Muslim or a christian is a Hindu. The stupid jains, buddists ad numerous others who were thinking that they were not Hindus perished in the onslaught.
Every Indian can have grandeur visions of how independent and sophisticated he and his school of thought is, the name he would give to his cult, the tradition and beliefs he would follow, but that wont make an iota of a difference for the Abrahamic semetic cults which are pure political and un-spiritual movements started in uncivilized barbarian lands
16. September 2009 - 1:30 AM
Babbar was unlikely to have spent anytime considering any other faith and was unlikley to have regarded hinduism(not that a such a term exsisted at the time) as a faith at all. Contrasting the past with the future it is a fact that what we regard today as hinduism has less correlations with Sikhism than say there are betwixt Christianity and Islam but these semitic faiths do not feel the need to claim ownership over the other, why do so many hindus feel this need? Also if you were to claim that someone was a hindu, what would that mean? What is the definition? Some believe in animal sacrifice, some in total sanctity of life, some eat faeces in graveyards whilst others purge themselves incessantly, some believe in a creator and some worship solely a idol, some believe in abstinence whilst others believe the divine is found in the act of sex, some tie rocks to their genitals, some castrate themselves in what they regard as a religious ritual, some perform a religious ceremon(devadasi) to enter a life of ‘blessed’ prostitution… how may accept the vedas and purans? How many have read them? According to the laws of Manu, how many would be allowed to hear let alone read them? Of those who have read them,how are their modern sensibilities affected by the stories of bestiality as in the rig veda? Who wrote them? Are these the canon of the faith? Is it a religion at all? Or is it more akin to a tradition, in the vein of paganism?