The Dreaded Daughter

Picture of the week

Though India has come a long way in regards to women’s rights and gender equality, one serious problem continues to persist. Families continue to display a strong preference for sons, and female feticide has continued to be a widely accepted practice in Indian society. The child sex ratio has decreased from 976 girls for every 1,000 boys in 1961, to 962 in 1981, and further down to 927 in 2001. It has been estimated that 10 million fetuses have been aborted in India over the last two decades. In order to decipher why this problem has become increasingly prevalent in the midst of women’s empowerment movements, we must examine the problem within the context of Indian society, and understand the issue as a reflection of Indian social and cultural norms.

Within the Indian tradition, sons have historically been perceived as the breadwinners and caretakers of the family. While it was traditionally not viable for a woman to have a high-paying job, men faced no discrimination in terms of obtaining an education and employment, thereby ensuring their financial security and ability to provide for their families. This form of discrimination has given rise to the Indian woman who will never be liberated from the supremacy of a man; authority over her is passed down from her father, to her husband, to her sons. She is never free, and a single life independent from male control was traditionally and still is generally not accepted by Indian society.

Sons have also traditionally been expected to take care of their parents in their old age. While daughters are married off and leave the home when they are very young to live with their husband’s family, sons remain with the parents, providing them with the financial and emotional security which their daughters, living away from home, and most likely without a job, could not guarantee.

The dowry system, which has been in place in India for thousands of years, also continues to play an important reason behind the preference for sons. I interviewed a lower caste woman at a basti (slum) in Jaipur about why so many expecting mothers are desperate for sons. Forty-two year old Camila, mother of three sons and one daughter, explained to me that her main concern was not being able to afford a dowry. When I asked if her preference for her first born would have been different had she had more money, she replied that yes, she would have instead wanted a girl.

India’s tradition of providing a dowry for the son-in-law has caused daughters to be viewed as a liability and a burden to parents. This custom has caused a whole other range of problems in and of itself, including dowry deaths and honor killings, in addition to female feticide and infanticide.

Other aspects of Indian culture which have contributed to the overlying preference for sons also exist. I spoke to Camila’s husband, Puran, whose main concern was with family lineage: “I wanted a boy because he carries the family name, whereas a daughter will leave to join another family.” Within the Hindu tradition, sons are also designated to light the funeral pyre in order to cremate their parents, whereas girls are given no such honorable responsibilities.

I was particularly disheartened when I spoke to another mother, Rajski, from the same basti who said she would have been equally inclined to have had a daughter were it not for the pressure she felt from her family: “I wanted a son because it is considered prestigious to have a son. I wanted more respect in my family, and my position increased in my family when I had a son, though I would have been just as happy to have a girl first.” Unfortunately this is the case among many Indian women, and many expecting mothers who would have otherwise had no preference, wish for a son in hopes of pleasing their families.  

Though the question still remains, why has the rate of female feticide increased in the last two decades? The answer lies in modern technology.

Ultrasound machines and amniocentesis tests which can determine the sex of a fetus have become widely available throughout India. Frightening slogans such as “Better 500 rupees now than 500,000 later” which have become popular throughout India’s abortion clinics, reflect the common mentality in response to the increasing cost of dowries. These tests have become so accessible and affordable that they are even used among the rural poor, and you can find ultrasound clinics in some of the most impoverished parts of the country. In these areas, an interesting shift has taken place: female infanticide has been replaced by the lesser-guilt option of feticide. It is an unfortunate reality that a technology which was developed in the West with the intention of detecting genetic disorders and helping to monitor the health of an expecting mother and her unborn child has, at the same time, promoted such an inhumane practice in the developing world. Mixing modern technology with traditional society is a risky business, and, as we have seen, can lead to unpredictable, frightening results. 

View of the sunset taken from a train, somewhere in between
Jaipur and Ranthambore

But isn't the government doing something? Even though the 1994 Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PNDT Act) outlawed pre-natal sex determination in hopes of abolishing the practice of female feticide, doctors are known to reveal the sex of a baby through coded hints such as offering a pink or blue candy, respectively, to the expecting parents. Though under the PNDT Act, doctors who violate the law are subject to five years in prison, only two have been convicted thus far. Yet another strike for India's incompetent government. 

One would presume that this seemingly tribal practice would be far more prevalent among India’s uneducated poor who cannot afford to pay dowries and who do not understand the grave consequences of a society devoid of women. However, I’ve been extremely surprised to learn that, in fact, the exact opposite is true: those who can afford to do so chose to design the perfect family. 

India’s 2001 census revealed a direct correlation between higher education and increased rates of female feticide. Sikhs and Jains, the two most prosperous communities of India with some of the highest literacy rates, also had the lowest child sex ratio. Of the seven religious groups accounted for (Hindus, Muslims, Jains, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, and Others), Sikhs had the lowest child sex ratio of 786 girls (aged 0 – 6) for every 1,000 boys, yet had the third highest literacy rate of 69.4%. Jains who had the second lowest ratio of 870 girls for every 1,000 boys, demonstrated the highest literacy rate of 94.1% out of all the communities. There have also been studies which show a relationship between the level of education and frequency of female feticide, such that college graduates and post-graduates have the lowest sex ratio as compared to parents who have had received an education no higher than a middle school level.

As it turns out, the literate and educated are no less prone to gender bias than are the illiterate and uneducated. They are, in fact, significantly more so. 

I spoke to Mrs. Chhaya Pachauli, a spokeswoman for an NGO based in Rajasthan called Prayas which works with women’s rights and empowerment. She explained that the reason female feticide is so much more common among India’s wealthy, educated communities compared to the rural poor is because the educated are more aware of the existing technologies for sex determination, and are thus more inclined to carefully plan their family around having few children. Therefore, if parents are having only one or two children, the pressure for at least one of them to be a boy dramatically increases, as compared to poor villagers who opt for more children due to higher infant mortality rates. The practice is more common amongst Jains in particular, she said, because the expenditure in getting a girl married is astronomical as they are expected to pay an exorbitant dowry, significantly higher than most other religious communities. 

I got the best spot on the train, sitting across from this guy
with my feet dangling out the door

Even if a family can afford to pay a hundred dowries, parents are still concerned about lineage, security in their old age, and the increased social status that comes with giving birth to a son. The educated rich in particular continue to resort to female feticide because they do not want their inheritance passed on to a different family. Land and money, if passed down to a son, insures that the wealth stay within the immediate family, whereas a daughter will take it with her to another family when she is married off. 

Rather than causing people to rethink the values and norms with which they were brought up, education has instead enabled people to negotiate the social and cultural constructs of their world, thereby reinforcing societal norms such as gender biases. Though some Indians may be well-educated, the content of their education continues to reflect their country’s social inequalities.

The 1990 census found that there were 25 million more boys than girls in India. By 2001, this number had risen to 35 million. It is now estimated that some 50 million girls are missing from India’s population. Some rural villages have been found to be completely devoid of baby girls. How will India’s rising population of frustrated bachelors cope? Such communities have resorted to ‘mail ordering’ brides from impoverished neighboring states and countries such as Nepal and Bangladesh. However, as India’s gender ratio becomes increasingly skewed, trafficking women will not be a sufficient solution to India’s brideless men.

The reality is that women are not safe in India, even in their mother’s wombs. Laws which are easily circumvented cannot change practices which have been observed for thousands of years; people’s mindsets need to change. At least among India’s poor, it seems as if strides have been taken, as many women do not expect a dowry for their sons. When I sat in on a women’s group meeting in a rural village in Daramsala, the topic was brought up, and I was relieved to hear that the women were all in agreement in that they would not accept a dowry for their sons. It is the rich and educated who utilize their resources to manipulate the constituency of their families.

This surprising pattern refutes the commonly accepted theory of demographic transition which anticipates rational social norms amongst wealthier, better educated communities. India has such a strong hold on tradition, unlike any other country, which is why I have a feeling that it will not follow the typical pattern of development which has been seen by almost every other country which has gone through the same process. But I’ll save that discussion for another time…

Here are some pictures I took on a tiger safari last weekend. It was beautiful, but the tigers forgot it was my 21st birthday and didn't grace me with their presence. They better not forget that Obama is coming to visit them next month...

A bird barely escapes the jaws of a crocodile

A Cruel Hierarchy

Picture of the week

My homestay family has a servant named Parvesh. He is 5’3, with a tiny frame which holds no more than 90 pounds. He spends his days cooking, cleaning, running errands, and doing whatever Auntie asks of him. He is only sixteen years old, and has been working for the family since he was seven. This is his life, and the chances of him ever getting an education are slim to none.

At a camel rehabilitation center
in the Thar Desert

Parvesh’s family is from West Bengal, on the other side of the country from Rajasthan. He has not had the opportunity to get an education as he is forced to work so he can send money home. I can not help but think back to when I was sixteen… I was in my sophomore year at a boarding school in Canada with every opportunity laid out in front of me. I would attend class during the day, and afternoons were filled with rowing practice and guitar class, weekends with regattas and social events. Though I was also living far from home, I never worried about whether my family was getting enough to eat, and I certainly never sent any money home. As much as I would like to finance Parvesh’s education (high school costs no more than $0.50/month), I realize that there is more than just poverty working against him. India’s caste system is so rigid and deeply rooted in the culture, that there is simply no hope for its degeneration.

India’s caste system divides society into four main orders: Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra. A fifth caste which is considered the lowest strata of Indian society and constitutes 16% of the population are the untouchables (also referred to as the Scheduled Castes, or Dalits, to be politically correct). These categorizations are further divided into hundreds of hierarchal sub-castes which are hereditary, and, unlike in the Western world’s class system, there is no opportunity for mobility. You carry your caste with you your entire life; there is no escaping it. It is revealed in the clothes you wear, in your last name, and how you compose yourself. Though some people belonging to lower castes attempt to rid themselves of the system by mimicking the upper castes (a process termed “sanskritization”, or “brahminization”), most accept their status in the caste system as a religious duty which they are required to fulfill.

Me with one of Jaipur's
lovely elephants!

What the Western world tends to dismiss when critiquing India’s caste system, is that it is more than just a hierarchy. The caste system was created to establish order within society, allotting certain jobs to certain people. The Brahmins are the priests and scholars, the Kshatryias the rulers and warriors, the Vaishyas the merchants, and the Shudras the servants. The “polluting” jobs are reserved for the Dalits, such as collecting garbage, cleaning bathrooms, sweeping the streets, etc… The reason so many lower castes do not even bother trying to improve their status in the caste system lies in their belief in reincarnation. Many Hindus believe that the caste they are born into is a result of their karma and the extent to which they fulfilled their religious duties in their previous life. Many Dalits and Shudras think that they deserve to be members of the lower castes, believing that they must have done something immoral or failed to follow the religious scriptures closely enough in a past life. This sort of mentality is of course convenient for the upper castes as it allows them to have access to all the power and resources.

Though India’s government has established a sort of American equivalent to affirmative action, allotting 40% of government jobs to the Scheduled Castes, unfortunately these regulations are poorly implemented and apply only to the public sector. The general consensus regarding these laws is that they have done nothing but anger the upper castes and given Dalits the opportunity to become corrupt leaders, causing even more resentment towards the lower castes. Passing laws is not sufficient to end this kind of discrimination. So long as Hinduism’s religious texts promote the caste system, this cruel hierarchy will continue to dictate the social structure of society, and people like Parvesh will never have the chance to pursue any opportunities beyond the boundaries of his caste.

In other news…

I attended my first Indian wedding last week. It was a traditional Muslim wedding, and the groom was a relative of my homestay mother’s sister’s husband. (Over a decade ago, my homestay mother’s sister made the controversial decision to not only have a love marriage, but to marry a Muslim, a sworn enemy of the Sikhs. Her parents disowned her, and it took four years before they ever spoke to her again). The women were dressed in their most colorful sarees, and every limb was adorned with as many diamonds and jewels it could possibly hold. Even the men wore long robes lined with sequins paired with their shiniest leather shoes. Despite the discomfort of being the only white person at the wedding (and American, nonetheless), I truly enjoyed the experience and realized how much I take my freedom of choice for granted.

Some adorable water buffalo cooling off in a lake

Not only had the bride and groom never met, but they were in separate rooms during the actual ceremony. Even during the reception, the bride remained in a separate room, while the groom was outside enjoying the festivities. When she did finally emerge from the room, she was completely veiled, and sat directly on the other side of the long table where her husband was eating. Neither of them even glanced at the other. They are not allowed to see each other until later that night when they meet privately at a hotel, where they are expected to consummate the marriage. *

This snake charmer isn't as brave
as he looks... they rip out their
fangs beforehand

I had a chance to meet both the groom and bride, and, interestingly enough, neither seemed particularly bothered by this arrangement. In fact, every single Indian I have talked to has expressed a positive attitude towards arranged marriages. It insures that people marry within their religion and caste, allowing them to preserve their culture and traditions. (Even advertisements looking for spouses in the newspaper are divided into sections by caste). Many Indians prefer this system to that of the Western world’s, and have gone so far as to tell me that it is a gesture of love for parents to find their children a spouse. This of course implies that if parents leave their children to find their own husband or wife, as is the case in America, that they do not care very much about their well being. It is difficult for Indians to conceptualize the American family system, seeing as with this kind of logic they tend to assume a sort of distant, impersonal dynamic between parents and children. And since the closest thing to arranged marriages in America is MTV’s “Parental Control”, I have found it difficult to convince them otherwise.

* Note that this type of arrangement where the bride and groom have absolutely no say in whom they marry is an extremely rare situation in both the Hindu and Muslim traditions. It is more common for the prospective spouses to meet each other a few times beforehand, allowing them to make the final decision.

I also finally made it to the Majestic Taj Mahal, here are some close-ups: