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Female infanticide in India has a history spanning centuries. The dowry system has been cited as one of the main reasons for female infanticide and sex-selective abortion as many families who live in poverty cannot afford to raise the funds for a suitable dowry. The government has tried various approaches to help prevent the practice. The dowry system was abolished in 1961, in 1991 financial incentives began, and in 1992 the baby cradle scheme was launched.

In 1990 the census figures showed there were 25 million more men in India than women. The state then made it illegal in 1994 to use ultrasounds to determine the gender of a child. But by 2001, the figures for the gender difference were up to 35 million more males than females, and by 2005 it was estimated at 50 million. The numbers involved have led commentators to compare the deaths to genocide, and Kalpana Kannabiran writing for India's Human Rights Law Network argues that infanticide and foeticide meet four of the five criteria as set out in the genocide convention.

Colonial period

The dowry system in India is one given reason for female infanticide; over a time period spanning centuries it has become embedded within Indian culture. Although the state has taken steps to abolish the dowry system, the practice persists, and for poorer families in rural regions female infanticide and gender selective abortion is attributed to the fear of being unable to raise a suitable dowry and then being socially ostracized.

In 1857, John Cave-Brown documented for the first time the practice of female infanticide among the Jats in the Punjab region. Data from the census during the colonial period and from 2001 propose that the Jat have practiced female infanticide for 150 years. In the Gujarat region, the first cited examples of discrepancies in the sex ratio among Lewa Patidars and Kanbis dates from 1847.

In 1789, during British colonial rule in India, the British discovered that female infanticide in the state of Uttar Pradesh was openly acknowledged. A letter from a magistrate who was stationed in the North West of India during this period spoke of the fact that for several hundred years no daughter had ever been raised in the strongholds of the Rajahs of Mynpoorie. In 1845 however the ruler at that time did keep a daughter alive after a district collector, named Unwin, intervened. A review of scholarship has shown that the majority of female infanticides in India during the colonial period occurred for the most part in the North West, and that although not all groups carried out this practice it was widespread. In 1870 after an investigation by the colonial authorities, the practice was made illegal with the passing of Female Infanticide Prevention Act, 1870 .

Post colonial period

In India, since 1974 amniocentesis has been used to determine the gender of a child before birth, and should the child be female then an abortion can be carried out. According to women's rights activist Donna Fernandes, some practices are so deeply embedded within Indian culture it is "almost impossible to do away with them", and she has said that India is undergoing a type of "female genocide". The United Nations has declared that India is the most deadly country for female children, and that in 2012 female children aged between 1 and 5 were 75 percent more likely to die as opposed to boys. The children's rights group CRY has estimated that of 12 million females born yearly in India 1 million will have died within their first year of life. In the Indian state of Tamil Nadu during British rule, the practice of female infanticide in Tamil Nadu among the Kallars and the Todas was reported. More recently in a June 1986 cover story, Born to Die, it was reported by India Today that female infanticide was still in use in Usilampatti in southern Tamil Nadu. The practice was mostly prevalent among the dominant caste of the region, Kallars.

Female foeticide in India accounts for a large part of the discrepancy in the sex ratio. The Indian Association for Women’s Studies reported in 1998 that 10,000 female fetuses are aborted yearly. An editorial in the Times of India gave a figure of 50,000 abortions of female fetuses yearly, while another study gave a figure of 78,000 killed between 1978 and 1983. The conflicted statistics in these studies show that this crime against women are an undetectable crime, and the numbers are indicative of genocide. The decline of the sex ratio is another indication of female infanticide and sex-selective abortion. The 1901 census showed a sex ratio of 972 females per 1,000 males. Following partition the ratio drops to 935 females per 1,000 males. As of 2005 it is estimated that 22 million women are missing in India, which had been estimated at 3 million while under colonial rule.

State response

In 1992 the Indian government started the Baby cradle scheme. The plan was to allow families to give their child up for adoption without going through paperwork, no names are taken. The scheme has been given praise for possibly saving the lives of thousands of baby girls, but has also been criticized by human rights groups, who say that the scheme encourages child abandonment and also reinforces the low status in which women are held. The scheme which was piloted in Tamil Nadu, saw cradles placed outside state run health facilities. The chief minister of Tamil Nadu at the time, added an additional incentive, which was to give money to families who had more than one daughter. The four years following the programmes inception 136 baby girls were given over, but in 2000, 1,218 cases of female infanticide were reported, the scheme was deemed a failure and abandoned but was reinstated the following year.

In 1991 the Girl Child Protection Scheme was launched. It operates as a long term financial incentive, with rural families having to meet certain obligations, such as sterilization for the woman. Once the obligations are met the state puts aside Rs 2000 in a state run fund, and upon reaching twenty the girl may use the money, which now should stand at ₨ 10,000, to either marry, or go into higher education.

Reactions

The Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) wrote in their 2005 report, Women in an Insecure World, that at a time when the number of casualties in war had fallen, a "secret genocide" was being carried out against women. According to DCAF the demographic shortfall of women who have died for gender related issues is in the same range as the 191 million estimated dead from all conflicts in the twentieth century. In 2012 the documentary It's a Girl: The Three Deadliest Words in the World was released. The documentary focused on female infanticide in China and in India. Cultural anthropologist Barbara D. Miller, working in Northern India, noted that over a five-day period, only male children were being brought in for treatment, while not a single girl was brought to the hospital. She also wrote that on a home visit to check on a girl who had TB that the mother, after being told that it would be costly to treat her daughter as she had left it so long said, "Then let her die, I have another daughter", while her two daughters sat nearby, one of whom was crying having heard her mother's words.

Footnotes

1. Although the Dowry Prohibition Act was passed in 1961 it had the consequence of young brides then being killed.

References

1. Jones & Gendercide.
2. Visaria 1983, p. 484.
3. Bunting 2011.
4. Agnivesh 2005.
5. Hundal 2013.
6. ^ Bhatnagar 2005, p. 2.
7. Kannabiran 2011, p. 601.
8. Parrot 2006, p. 160.
9. Oberman 2005, pp. 5–6.
10. Vishwanath 2006, p. 278.
11. Cave-Browne 1857, p. 121.
12. Miller 1987, pp. 97–98.
13. Miller 1987, p. 99.
14. Jeffery 1984.
15. ^ Krishnan 2012.
16. George 1997, pp. 124–132.
17. Bhalla 2012.
18. Parrot 2006, pp. 64–65.
19. Perwez 2011, p. 250-251.
20. Mashru 2012.
21. Winkler 2005, p. 7.
22. DeLugan 2013, pp. 649–650.
23. Miller 1987, p. 95.

Bibliography

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• Bhalla, Nita (3 December 2013). "India's Cradle Baby scheme hopes to end female infanticide". Reuters. Retrieved 30 December 2013.
• Bhatnagar, Rashmi Dube (2005). Female Infanticide in India: A Feminist Cultural History. State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0791463277. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Bunting, Madeleine (22 July 2011). "India's missing women". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 December 2013.
• Cave-Browne, John (1857). Indian infanticide: its origin, progress, and suppression. W. H. Allen & Co. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• DeLugan, Robin Maria (2013). "Exposing Gendercide in India and China (Davis, Brown, and Denier's It's a Girl—the Three Deadliest Words in the World )". Current Anthropology. 54 (5). University of Chicago Press: 649–650. doi:10.1086/672365. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• George, Sabu M. (1997). "Female Infanticide in Tamil Nadu, India: From Recognition Back to Denial?". Reproductive Health Matters. 5 (10). JSTOR 3775470. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hundal, Sunny (8 August 2013). "India's 60 million women that never were". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 30 December 2013.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Jeffery, R (1984). "Female infanticide and amniocentesis". Social Science & Medicine. 19 (11). National Center for Biotechnology Information: 1207–1212. doi:10.1016/0277-9536(84)90372-1. PMID 6395348.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Jones, Adam. "Case Study: Female Infanticide". Gendercide Watch. Retrieved 29 December 2013.
• Kannabiran, Kalpana (2011). "Gender Cleansing". In Harsh Dobhal (ed.). Writings on Human Rights, Law and Society in India, Combat Law Anthology. Socio Legal Information. pp. 503–611. ISBN 81-89479-78-4. Female Foeticide and female infanticide satisfy four of the five criteria set out in the Genocide Convention {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Krishnan, Murali (20 March 2012). Shamil Shams (ed.). "Female infanticide in India mocks claims of progress". Deutsche Welle.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Mashru, Ram (18 January 2012). "It's a girl: The three deadliest words in the world". The Independent.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Miller, Barbara D. (1987). Nancy Scheper-Hughes (ed.). Child Survival: Anthropological Perspectives on the Treatment and Maltreatment of Children. Springer. pp. 95–112. ISBN 978-1556080289. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Oberman, Michelle (2005). "A Brief History of Infanticide and the Law". In Margaret G. Spinelli (ed.). Infanticide Psychosocial and Legal Perspectives on Mothers Who Kill (1st ed.). American Psychiatric Publishing. ISBN 1-58562-097-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Parrot, Andrea (2006). Forsaken Females: The Global Brutalization of Women. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0742545793. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Perwez, Shahid (2011). "Female Infanticide and the Civilizing Mission in Post Colonial India: A Case Study from Tamil Nadu c. 1980-2006". In Carey Anthony Watt, Michael Mann (ed.). Civilizing Missions in Colonial and Postcolonial South Asia: From Improvement to Development. Anthem Press. pp. 243–316. ISBN 978-1843318644. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Winkler, Theodor H. (2005). "Slaughtering Eve The Hidden Gendercide". Women in an Insecure World (PDF). Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Visaria, Leela (1983). "Population (1757-1947)". In Tapan Raychaudhuri, Irfan Habib, Dharma Kumar (ed.). The Cambridge Economic History of India (Volume 2 ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521228022. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
• Vishwanath, L. S. (2006). "Female Infanticide, Property and the Colonial State". In Tulsi Patel (ed.). Sex-Selective Abortion in India: Gender, Society and New Reproductive Technologies. SAGE. pp. 269–285. ISBN 978-0761935391. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Female foeticide and infanticide in India