Enough is enough. It is time to set the record straight and teach the basics of genetics to men in India and maybe elsewhere too! It is time to put a stop at the suffering of women accused of the impossible and blamed for not having sons. It is time people learnt the facts of X and Y! I mean chromosomes. A woman was strangled to death for giving birth to a daughter. She was strangled by her husband of 10 years because she had yet again produced a daughter. It is time this bloke and others like him been told that actually HE was responsible for the child’s gender, he and he alone. His poor wife did not have what is needed to make the child a son. The required Y!
It is time Governments the world over, organisations and family planning programmes launched Project Y. One cannot begin to imagine women are abused, slandered, vilified, taunted, repudiated and now even murdered for not giving birth to a son, as if they had they were responsible for the same. Let us not forget the millions of little girls who are killed before they are born and after. Little Afreen is just a poignant reminder of this cruel and horrific fact. What makes it all more incomprehensible and puzzling is that this happens in the very land that celebrates Goddesses with alacrity and misplaced fervor.
And don’t live under the false impression that such behaviour is only seen in villages or urban slums. It is all pervading though the taunts may be subtler as one moves up the social echelon. Girl foeticide is rampant is middle class India where money easily subverts loose laws. There are sufficient medical practitioners willing to perform sex determinations tests for the right amount of gold. And what is worse is the absolute denial of genetic laws by so called educated people. I remember an instance when an educated person whose son had produced a second daughter and who I was trying to ‘educate’ promptly retorted: My son can do no wrong! Read ‘wrong’ as be responsible for the gender of his child. Come on! On what planet are we living. And what is it that makes us hate girls so much. It seems like we have lost our bearings completely. Would strongly recommend you see Manish Jha’s disturbing film Matrubhoomi: A Nation Without Women to visualise this reality. The film won many international awards but needless to say barely ran in Indian theaters. I guess no one wants to see reality when it is thrown at us, it is just too disquieting.
I still wonder why the X/Y story is not screamed for every rooftop. It should be. As were it to be many women would be freed from age long pain and distress and men would see themselves in another light. If men were to understand that they are the ones responsible for determining the sex of a child would they still kill their daughters? It is a million dollar question but one worth addressing.