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TOI-27th June 2006

Govt to godmen: Speak against female foeticide

By Himanshi Dhawan/TNN

New Delhi: Rationalists are not going to be pleased. But Deng Xiaoping’s acolytes would appreciate the government’s move to rope in godmen and spiritual leaders like Asaram Bapu and Mata Amritanandamayi to strengthen opinion against female foeticide.
The ministry of women and child development seems to have borrowed a leaf from the late Chinese leader’s pragmatic approach — Deng famously said the colour of a cat does not matter as long as it catches mice — to recruit effective partners in its campaign to protect the girl child.
It has written to several leaders asking them to speak against female foeticide while stressing “positive attributes” of women in their discourses.
Officials hope godmen will slip in the message of women as an asset — invoking references from Vedic and Puranic texts to ‘Lakshmi’ and ‘Shakti’ — rather than a liability. This positive imaging, they hope, may help prevent the barbaric practise of killing girl children in the womb. Letters have been sent to spiritualists like Sri Asaram Bapu, Mata Amritanandamayi Math, Guru Ramdev, Baba Gurinder Singh, Baba Prem Kumar Satsangi and Baba Hardev Singh.
The cause for concern is the steep fall in the sex ratio in the past few years. The ratio dropped from 976 women per 1,000 males in 1961 to 927 females per 1,000 males in 2001 (for the age group 0-6). ‘‘It is unfortunate that this practice is carried out by all sections of society regardless of economic, caste or cultural background,’’ said WCD secretary Reva Nayyar in the letter.
The letter explains that as a result of this imbalance in population, there have been societal imbalances and reports of trafficking of women, forced marriages and polyandry are common in areas where the number of women are less. ‘‘The declining adverse sex ratio and the continuing poor status of the girl child is a manifestation of a much larger, deeper and malignant undercurrents of societal perceptions and attitudes towards girls,’’ the communication said.