Tradition and Technology in Precluding Girl Child in India

Introduction

An eclipsing phenomenon of masculine hegemony that pervasively shrinks female space, curbs her freedom, curtails her interest, saps her energy, squeezes her praxis and so on, manifests in the critical perversion of awful practices of gendered elimination at birth. Demographically, though population ratio in India was 940 females per 1000 of males in 2011 in contrast to 933 females to that of 1000 males in 2001 (see Appendix), symbolising an upward trend of gender ratio in contradistinction to decreasing female child ratio in the past five decades, a declining trend in the female child ratio is observed in the age group of 0–6 years in which, the lowest since India’s independence, gender ratio of 914 girls to 1000 boys was recorded in 2011 (Census of India, 2011). Such skewed child gender ratio recorded in terms of decline of female child population in the age group of 0–6 years from 78.83 million in 2001 to 75.84 million in 2011 as well as the population of girl child from 15.88 per cent of the total female population of 496.5 million in 2001 to 12.9 per cent of total number of 586.47 million women in 2011 (Central Statistical Organisation, 2012) is largely attributed to 3 million missing girls in 2011.

Curiously, in a scenario of globalisation making inroads into the fabrics of sociocultural, economic and political structures, the attention of the state, civil society and media is drawn to the customary practice of killing the newborn girl child in Indian villages as well as the modern sex preselection test that indulges masses and the medical practitioners at clinics in urban centres over the past three decades. These evidences signify that human recruitment in society by procreation circumscribed by gender-biased screening, selection and elimination impedes the entry of women into contemporary society. Therefore, in the backdrop of international acclaims of gender justice, women’s rights and gender mainstreaming, this article looks into the endurance of pervasive vulnerability of women at the level of their entry into human population by exploring the roots of the practice of female infanticide and foeticide in globalising Indian society.

Deviance and Control

Women preclusion by gendered elimination at birth manifests in the form of female infanticide and female foeticide. While the female infant is killed after birth in the case of ‘female infanticide’, ‘female foeticide’ involves the abortion of female foetus before birth, causes of which are social in nature (Dasthagir, 1998). Such violence is executed out by the collective effort of a group of adult individuals comprising the parents, primary kin or friends of parents aided by medical doctor in aborting foetus or the rural midwife in killing the infant. Consequently, the foetus or infant targeted by such collective criminal action is a ‘societal victim’.

Female infanticide ¹ is reported to have existed in India since 1789 in several districts of Rajasthan; along the western shores in Gujarat—Surat and Kutch; and among a clan of Rajputs in eastern part of Uttar Pradesh (Tandon & Sharma, 2006), among the Kallars and the Todas during colonial period (Athreya & Chunkath, 2000), and was reported from Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Orissa, Rajasthan and Maharashtra in the twentieth century (George, 1997). For instance, The Los Angeles Times dated 22 February 1994 stated ‘Killing is not a big sin to Kallars up there’ and while The Indian Express dated 10 February 1994 reported ‘female infanticide is a fact of life’, The Hindu dated 16 October 1994 asserted that it is a norm in Usilampatti of Madurai district of Tamil Nadu, India.

Contrarily, infanticide amounts to homicide and all legal provisions applicable to the offence of homicide are applicable to infanticide viz. Section 318 concealment of birth by secret disposal of the dead body amounts to culpable homicide. Further, Sections 312–316 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) deal with miscarriage and death of an unborn child and implicate the penalties ranging from 7 years to life imprisonment for 14 years and fine, depending on the severity and intention with which the crime is committed (Tandon & Sharma, 2006). Similarly, state governments and a number of nongovernmental organisations have initiated preventative measures and developed programmes to prevent female infanticide. For instance, the government of Tamil Nadu enacted the ‘Jayalalitha Protection Scheme’ for the girl child and launched the ‘Cradle Babies’ scheme’ that asked families to abandon their unwanted female infants in cradles set up in government health centres, rather than kill them, since 1992 (Srinivasan & Bedi, 2010). Thus, the customary practice of female infanticide continues despite Indian institutional arrangements curb its occurrence.

On the other hand, latest advances in modern medical sciences—the tests like amniocentesis and ultrasonography—which were originally designed for detection of congenital abnormalities of the foetus—are being misused for knowing the sex of the foetus with the intention of aborting female foetus (Bose, 2001). Against this, the Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act passed in 1994 and implemented in January 1996 prohibited determination of sex of the foetus and stipulated punishment for the violation of the provisions. It also stipulated for mandatory registration of genetic counselling centres, clinics, hospitals, nursing homes, etc. (Tandon & Sharma, 2006). The National Policy for the Empowerment of Women in India (2001) declared that measures will be adopted that take into account the reproductive rights of women to enable them to exercise informed choices, and ‘all forms of discrimination against the girl child and violation of her rights shall be eliminated by undertaking strong measures both preventive and punitive within and outside the family. These would relate specifically to strict enforcement of laws against prenatal sex selection and the practices of female foeticide, female infanticide, child marriage, child abuse and child prostitution, etc.’ (Ghansham, 2002). However, it is reported that 11.2 million illegal abortions occur in India yearly (Girish, 2005). Paradoxically, despite such legal paradigms to prevent, treat and punish the perpetrators of female foeticide and infanticide, several gynaecologists performed the amniocentesis tests for sex determination and aborted female foetuses at the same time; newborn female infants are reported to be missing or dead (NDTV, 2012).

Thus, the practice of gendered elimination at birth exists precluding the addition of women in society through abortion and by killing the female newborns. It is the human beings who make a gender purposive selection when they carry out the act of killing the foetus and infants for sociocultural reasons centring around marriage, economy, social esteem and so on. In this victimisation, the practice of gendered violence percolates to deny the ‘right to be born and right to life and right to live’ to females. As other rights cannot be ensured without the right to live, it is the most basic of all rights; denying it is perhaps the most critical violation of human rights. Such gendered elimination at birth should be perceived beyond the sphere of gender discrimination and as the manifestation of the ‘patriarchal hegemonic tendency of eliminating recruitment of females in human society’.

Above all, the magnitude of the occurrence of female foeticide and infanticide contradicting divine proscriptions as well as legal ban reveals that gendered selection of birth superseded sacred norms and rational regulations. Such socially legitimised illegal abortions and socially institutionalised illegal murder of female infants are to a large degree instrumental in latently decreasing female population in India.

Theoretical Approach

India, being the land of tradition, has uniquely responded to the factors and forces of change by resilience in restructuring its institutions characterised by change and continuity. In the process of change, in consonance with the endogenic and exogenic factors facilitating circulation of the elements of little and great traditions, the heterogenic forces bringing new elements created conditions for the retention or reformulation of traditions in certain spheres of social life. With a view to perceive this social phenomenon, the propositions on ‘Universalisation and Parochialisation’ and ‘Globalisation and Tradition’ put forth by Marriott (1955) and Giddens (2004), respectively, have been employed to explain the roots and perpetuation of women preclusion at birth in India.

McKim Marriott (1955) suggested that universalisation and parochialisation are two ways in which the little and great traditions interact. Universalisation is the process by which a local tradition is transformed into a great tradition or form part of a great tradition. In contrast, Parochialisation is the process by which some element of the great tradition is learned and then shaped to become a part of the local practice.

Anthony Giddens observes that the global cosmopolitan society resulting from globalisation is a society living after the end of tradition; the end of tradition does not mean that tradition disappears. On the contrary, traditions continue to flourish in different versions everywhere. However, less and less tradition exists in the traditional way. In the view of Giddens, it is a myth to think of traditions as impervious to change. Traditions evolve over time, but can also be altered or transformed. Thus, they are invented and reinvented. Further, Giddens advocated that tradition is not only still alive but it is also resurgent. Tradition can also be defended in a non-traditional way—and that should be its future.

Diagnosing Women Preclusion at Birth

It is discernible from the cited evidences that the incidence of female infanticide and foeticide is irrevocably embedded in the Indian social institutions despite legal mechanisms in place and sacred scriptures declaring these as sins. Therefore, comprehending these crimes necessitates a probe into the conditions congenial for the continuation of such deviance to occur over time. In this regard, a majority of studies propound the practice of dowry as the chief factor responsible for gendercide in India (Ghansham, 2002). Apparently, rates of child sex ratio still decrease with little signs of impending change, though the Indian government has illegalised institution of dowry. Similarly, there are studies that propose poverty as the cause for elimination of girls. They assert that with India’s current demography, poverty is not only a leading dynamic in the practice of female infanticide and foeticide but also a factor that contributes to its endurance.

Nonetheless, the institution of dowry as the factor could have made elimination at birth so pervasive that these incidents could unequivocally endanger girls cutting across class, caste, religious differences across India. In other words, the extent of dowry could have magnified the magnitude of such occurrence that would have engendered gender skewed demographic transition in India. On the other hand, corresponding to the decline of the number of those below the poverty line to 21.9 per cent of the population in 2011–12, from 29.8 per cent in 2009–10 and 37.2 per cent in 2004–05 in general and rural poverty to 25.7 per cent from 41.8 per cent in 2004–05 in particular, incidents of gendercide should have witnessed significant drop in India (Economic Times, 2014). Moreover, if poverty is the cause, all the poor in India should resort to these excluding the elite from such practices. Therefore, the roots of these gendered crimes at birth should be probed not only in economic parameters but also in the conscious volition of a group of individuals in formulating decisions and executing the act of gender selective preclusion.

The Cultural Roots of Obviating Females

There are certain cultural beliefs upheld by the people of Indian society reinforcing the predominance of the ‘son-cult’. The predominant among those beliefs is the need of a son for lighting the funeral pyre. To fulfil this religious custom there is a need to reproduce a son. Since sons are required to provide income, women who fail to produce a son are often subject to ridicule and abuse, or are cast out of their husband’s home to return to their parental family in shame. This son-cult, though pervasive, perhaps exists in a latent form everywhere, while it magnifies itself violently in the practice of female infanticide and foeticide (Dasthagir, 1998).

Moreover, emphasising the need for a son in sociocultural–religious terms is not an uncommon feature in a patriarchal society. The patriarchal values receiving the due legitimisation from the social structure create the condition sufficient for the discrimination at birth on the basis of sex. This gender discrimination is a purposive feature of the culture which idolises sons and dreads the birth of a daughter. It is not uncommon for the groom’s family to dictate terms upon the bride’s family of which the most conspicuous is the demand to give birth to ‘son only’. Accordingly, with the agenda of sustaining the conjugal union, the female born or likely to be born is eliminated.

For instance, in Usilampatti, the dominant community of this region, namely, Pramalai Kallar, reinforces the predominance of son-cult which leads to female infanticide. The predominant among those beliefs is the need of a son for lighting the funeral pyre which is facilitated through the belief that killing the preceding female sibling would give birth to a son.

In addition, son assumes a social significance to generate income and to provide physical strength in the form of muscle power to the family, especially to defend their father in particular, and all members of the family in general at the time of rivalry and group conflicts for the people of this region. This urge for more number of sons should not any more give way for having more daughters which otherwise bring an economic burden to the family. Such obsession for a sons calling for sacrificing a female infant results in female infanticide. Hence, the practice of elimination of female infants in between while retaining sons only (Dasthagir, 1998).

In furtherance, female children are looked upon as a burden on the family ² and the Indian values idolise that the pre-eminent duty of every parent of a daughter is to get her married. The dowry system, though prohibited by law, still exists and thus promotes the view that the daughter is a burden. Such perception of weighing the implication of the birth of a female in the light of the capacity of the parents to bear the cost of her marriage and pre- and post-wedding ceremonies contribute to the formation of the public opinion that a ‘girl is a liability’ (Aravamudan, 2007). Juxtaposing the preferential status of boys against devalued position of girls, women in India are victims of the patriarchal cultural preconditions that favour renouncing females at birth.

The Structural Premise and Consensual Elimination of Girls

Nonetheless, the process of eliminating females is not the action of one individual alone. For instance, the emergence of the practice of female infanticide in western part of Madurai district can be attributed to Pramalai Kallar (DuMonte, 1984) who were employed in their traditional occupation as warriors. Due to displacement from their traditional warrior occupation, in the absence of livelihood, the Pramalai Kallar resorted to highway robbery, burglary, etc. (as plundering the defeated in the war) and attacking and killing the police and officials. Consequently, from 1918 to 1947 the Pramalai Kallars ³ were placed under the jurisdiction of the Criminal Tribes and Caste Act of 1911. Thus, since Pramalai Kallars were inured to killing in wars, they could carry out killing the newborn female infants. This finding is replicable to Rajputs and such warrior communities who could execute their tendency to avoid girls by killing the newborn females.

Either in infanticide or in foeticide, always a group of individuals is involved in the formulation and execution of the decision with or without the mother’s consent. In the rural community, the family, kin and neighbourhood works together in execution of the criminal act of murdering female infant (Dasthagir, 1998). Likewise, in urban areas, the parents, friends and neighbours supported by the medical professionals abort the female foetus. Therefore, the practice of female infanticide and foeticide can be located at the social interaction among the like-minded deviants who mutually reinforce their patriarchal tendencies to execute eliminating the birth of girl children resulting, to a greater or lesser extent, in the existentiality in which they commonly find themselves.

The collectivity, in fact, works to channelise the ideology of the practice, beginning from making the decision to preclude female and works through the execution of the act and beyond; by maintaining anonymity of the executioner and concealing the case from all institutional arrangements. Accordingly, these practices are the products of collective consensus. For instance, the society approves the burial of the infant aged less than 30 days at the backyard of their houses and reporting to enumerators as a death occurred due to natural and social causes (Dasthagir, 1998). The act of female foeticide is committed with the formal consent of parents, while medical personnel or relatives and others conceal the case without being reported. Concomitantly, the existentiality experienced by the patriarchal society is so constructed to create a condition in which cultural values help to reproduce behaviour which are at odds with the mandates of the structural norms and institutional regulations perpetuating such deviance to occur which lends credence to the continuum of female infanticide to female foeticide in contemporary society. Thus, female infanticide and foeticide are practices institutionalised into the fabric of patriarchal social structure legitimizing the collective volition and anonymity of the process of elimination at birth succumbing the basic and vital human right of female to live on earth.

The Continuum of Gendered Elimination at Birth

The origin and historicity of female infanticide is even though not precisely traced, the existing empirical evidences indicate the perpetuation of this practice over decades. In the case of western part of Madurai district, with the advent of British rule in the nineteenth century, Pramalai Kallars ⁴ experienced occupational displacement that created conditions for the emergence and perpetuation of the practice of female infanticide throughout the community.

Retrospectively, as portrayed in Figure 1, the practice of female infanticide was carried out in a rural setting using rudimentary methodology with a purpose of eliminating girl children combining the primitive strategy of procrastinated process of determining the sex of the baby up till birth, by employing customary techniques in terms of pregnant women’s preferences to smell, taste, etc. In this process of elimination of the girl child, the victimisation of the female infant may be direct in the sense that the life of the female infant may be taken away by choking, suffocating or by administering poisonous stuff (Dasthagir, 1998). The traditional methods of killing female infant include feeding paddy (rice with its husk) soaked in milk or the poisonous sap of the caltrops plant (George, 1997), drowning the baby in a bucket of milk, or feeding her salt, or burying her alive in an earthen pot (Aravamudan, 2007), the execution of which also has been equally rudimentary murder by choking or suffocating the newborn female and burying it in the backyard of the rural household. Thus, in traditional context, it is a deliberate and intentional act of killing a female child within 1 year of its birth either directly by using poisonous organic and inorganic chemicals or indirectly by deliberate neglect to feed the infant by either one of the parents or other family members or neighbours or by the midwife (Athreya & Chunkath, 2000).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Source: Author’s own.

However, as these customary techniques are apparent and detected through a police investigation (Aravamudan, 2007), to avoid arrest rural families adopt more latent new methods of killing female infants in which the infant is murdered by wrapping in a wet towel or dipped in cold water as soon as it is born or when it comes back home from hospital being certified as the case of pneumonia or the infant is killed by feeding a drop of alcohol to induce diarrhoea (Chawla, 2010). It is reported that there is a skewed survival rate for girls in India of the age 1 month to 5 years who are dying of pneumonia and diarrhoea at a rate that is 4–5 times higher than boys. Such a phenomenon is described as a reflection on social bigotry against girls (The Hindu, 2012). The elimination can also be indirect as life is taken away due to deprival of lactation or exposing the newborn to the unfavourable weather conditions by placing the female infant in the backyard during winter night (Dasthagir, 1998). Thus, with the advancement of institutional arrangement of correctional administration, the practice of female infanticide, in spite of being mitigated, is perhaps resurgent in the globalising Indian society with the innovation of modern techniques of causing death of newborn females. Therefore, in the modern connotation, the practice of female infanticide is the process of systematic elimination of female infants out of live births distinguished as active infanticide that lures public media coverage and passive infanticide or passive euthanasia that medical professionals can identify.

In a similar vein, the medical technology eased the identification of the sex of the child in the womb of the mother at the level of the foetus itself. The modern gadgets and clinical techniques facilitate the dissolution of the female foetus, thereby serving the purpose of precluding the birth of girl children (Luthra, 1999). With the dissemination, cost reduction and increased access to modern medical care, female foeticide has become a contemporary social phenomenon of which educated, elite or upper-caste are no exceptions (Bose, 2001). In the late twentieth century, sex-selective abortions had largely been limited to those who can afford the high cost of both the ultrasound checkups and the actual abortion procedure (Sharma & Haub, 2008). Accordingly, the upper middle class elite section of urban population had adopted the practice of female foeticide. Consequently, the tendency to preclude girl child surfaced in Indian cities and towns. Moreover, a considerable section of Indian population which otherwise did not indulge in killing female infants, plunged into the practice of female foeticide.

Succintly, the collective conscience with which the decision is made, collective effort with which the act is executed and collective volition with which these are not reported in rural as well as urban communities embody female infanticide and foeticide as the collective gender crimes transmitted from traditional to modern society. Correspondingly, the practice of elimination of girl child that characterised rural communities is carried forward to urban communities establishing ‘the continuum of tendency’ to preclude women into the modern society. As a corollary, applying the theoretical model propounded by Marriot, it is generalised that the technological innovations in eliminating females culminated in the universalisation of women preclusion from traditional to modern society while, greater access and lower cost of reproductive medical care lead to the parochialisation of female foeticide from urban to rural as well as from the elite to the poor sections of modern India.

Detraditionalisation in Women Preclusion at Birth

Correspondingly, persistence of female infanticide and sex-selective abortion in contemporary society can largely be attributed to the spread of new ideas and technology through globalisation privatisation of health-care system in less developed countries. The process of globalisation embodying commercialisation, marketisation, corporatisation and increasing share of the ‘for profit’ health care sector across the world over the past two decades has ramifications in India (Baru, 2006). Currently, it is estimated that 80 per cent doctors, 78 per cent outpatient services and 60 per cent inpatient services are in the private sector in India (Bali, 2012).

As depicted in Figure 1, with the spread of technology aided by globalisation, sex-selective abortion has more or less become from a luxury to a rather accessible commodity for a large section of the Indian population. Besides, the development of new preselection techniques, such as, electrophoresis, Ericsson’s method, etc., which involve prior manipulation of the sex of the child further aggravate the issue. With the reduction of cost, ultrasound checkups are available to even the impoverished in India. Sex-selective abortions are gradually permeating rural areas also due to availability of portable ultrasounds and doctors willing to practice abortions. Accordingly, although initially an urban phenomenon, with the expansion of medical care, decentralised hospital infrastructure and greater access to medical technology by awareness, transport and mass media facilities, female foeticide has crept into Indian villages. In certain states of India, there are today mobile ultrasound units which regularly visit rural areas facilitating diffusion of abortion of female foetuses. Resultantly, the poor section of Indian society either in towns or suburban or rural areas can avail the technology to execute their tendency to avoid girl children. Ironically, the lower middle class as well as the poor began to perceive such expenditure as gainful investment (Girish, 2005). Curiously, the advancement in modern medical technology has to a greater extent given ascendance in varying degrees to the tendency to do away with girls. Thus, with greater accessibility in more rural areas of India, sex-selective abortion, in coming years, is more likely to replace the practice of female infanticide.

Thus, the ‘detraditionalisation in the practice of women preclusion by modernization in the techniques of killing infants in rural and innovative low cost advanced anti-female technology aided by globalisation, abetted the manifestation of the enduring tendency to eliminate females at birth’ in rural and urban settings. Therefore, it could be broadly comprehended that greater the modernisation and globalisation, higher the expression of the tendency of women preclusion with the continuum of the practice of eliminating females at birth from infanticide to foeticide. Concomitantly, in the light of the propositions on ‘Globalization and Tradition’ (Giddens, 2004), with certain degree of certainty, it is theorised that against development of technology, advancement of medical care and expansion of infrastructure under the worldwide wave of globalisation, the traditional tendency of women preclusion has demonstrated resurgence, instead of regression. The new forms it has assumed bear testimony to the resilience of this tendency in globalising Indian society.

Conclusion

The practice of female infanticide over centuries and sex-selective abortions in the recent decades is the manifestation of the continuity of deep-rooted gender injustice immanent in the human society. These socio-criminal phenomena cutting across castes, class and religious differentiations and even the regional dichotomy, embody conditions under which the girl children become target of attack after birth or even before they are born in the advanced, postmodern society. Accordingly, the most crude form of practice of patriarchy percolating into ‘the tendency to eliminate females from society’ manifests in the form of female infanticide aided by rudimentary techniques, whereas latest advances in modern medical sciences aided the occurrence of female foeticide both in urban and rural communities.

Concomitantly, female infanticide and female foeticide should be perceived as the continuum of the transcendence of the tendency to eliminate entry of females on the earth both in traditional and modern as well as rural and urban societies. In this trajectory, the development of the society from classical to rational or traditional to modern corresponds with retrogression of the status of women from elimination of females after birth in certain pockets of the country to their preclusion before birth across space. The continuum of such gendered elimination at birth is largely detraditionalised from overt violence of killing after birth to covert violence of aborting before birth under the disguise of privatized-modern maternal medical care, cumulatively culminating in the women preclusion from human species, symbolising the perpetration of gender regression over time and across space in the Indian society.