India's Women and the Growing Gender Imbalance

[Guest guest]

HONG KONG (March 30, 2006): Growing up in my hometown in Indian

Punjab, I often heard people remarking to my father, "You are very

fortunate." It seemed a reasonable statement: In the hothouse of the

Indian middle class, obsessed with academic performance, were we

five siblings, each intent on surpassing the excellent scholarship

of the others.

 

How much better could it get for my parents? I would shrug with the

cool assurance of youth; I saw but never registered my father's

furrowed brow, the questioning upward movement of his hand. It was

only later, when I moved out of Punjab to study engineering, that I

began to comprehend, little by little, the nature of my

father's "fortune."

 

In a land where people do away with newborn girls, my father had

four daughters. "Kuree maar" (daughter-killer) is a common

pejorative in Punjab, yet my father was not only raising four girls,

but also educating them and sending them to professional colleges.

To add to the strangeness of it all, the girls began to graduate and

earn handsome salaries.

 

Punjab, India's gateway through the ages to conquering armies from

Persia, Mongolia and Turkey, had distilled its historical wisdom

into a belief that girls were no good. Centuries back, they were

carried off by marauding armies as slave booty; today they are an

inferior commodity in the marriage market.

 

When their child reaches marriagable age, parents who have sired a

son (often with considerable help from a sex-determination test) can

command a Honda car, a house, a flat-screen television, cash, even

foreign trips - all in the name of the dowry that the hapless

parents of the bride are obliged to provide. In a patriarchal

society like Punjab, women are defined by matrimony.

 

Before marriage, a Indian woman is a cipher. Marriage simply confers

the decimal point. Thereafter, she can raise her value by becoming

the mother of sons. It is in her hands, and she understands the

situation all too well.

 

The tools are readily available: tin-roofed clinics in dusty towns

that provide prenatal diagnostic testing and subsequent "medical

termination of pregnancy," also known as abortion; traveling

laboratories that conduct on- the-spot ultrasound tests; midwives

who scour the countryside for pregnant women in need of "help." For

some, it is never too late to smother a newborn girl under a sack of

grain, strangle her, or bury her alive.

 

Punjab, India's granary and its most prosperous state, has added

another claim to its record: it's the state with the worst child sex

ratio: 776 girls for every 1,000 boys. There are districts in the

state where only one girl child has been born in the past six months.

 

This is giving rise to a whole new breed of women, known as

Draupadis. In the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata, Draupadi was

married to five Pandava brothers, and played a central role in the

story. But she is no heroine, no role model; the regard Indians hold

for her is apparent in the fact that seldom is a girl named after

her.

 

Scarce supply should increase the premium on goods. But in the

upside-down world that India's women inhabit, everyone wants a woman

who is somebody else's daughter. Consequently, fraternal polyandry

is flourishing, institutionalizing violence against women: one woman

is forced to marry her husband's brothers, and is expected to

produce sons for each of them.

 

My father managed to astound his community with his counterintuitive

act: In a culture that regards the birth of a girl as bad luck, he

decided that his daughters would be in charge of their destinies. He

empowered us. To my mind, that simple act is a beacon.

 

Laws exist in India to safeguard women's rights: polyandry, seeking

dowry and sex selection all are prohibited. These laws, however,

need to be publicized and enforced so that women know a legal

recourse exists for them and that when facing a bully, the first

step might just be to stand up for their rights.

 

In one recent instance, a new bride was daily nagged by her mother-

in-law for more dowry. One day she wrenched open a can of kerosene,

splashed it on herself and declared she was proceeding to the

nearest police station to complain that her in-laws' were

threatening to set her on fire.

 

The burning of brides after dowry disputes has forced the police to

sit up. The mother-in-law, chastened, stopped her nagging. The young

woman was successful because she knew the law existed.

 

SOURCE: International Herald Tribune. India's Women Battle the 'Bad

Luck' Label, by Manreet Sodhi Someshwar

URL: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/29/opinion/edmanreet.php

[Guest guest]

Namaste,

 

Will someone please send me a little girl? If there are so many of

them unwanted, smothered, strangled or abandoned, surely there must be

one that I could mother and love. I will raise her in the love of the

Goddess and provide her with the best that my fortunes, values and

intellect can allow.

 

How can it be that there is such suffering and abuse for these little

ones and I cannot rescue even one? It boggles my mind. But according

to the international rules of adoption, at 44 I am too old, and also

the cost of an international adoption is beyond my means, though I

could most adaquately support a child.

 

As I read these stories, weekly, in the news, I am saddened by the

irony. How can you love your girls so little, that you will not even

send them off to safety, but would prefer that they suffer and die.

 

May the merciful Goddess intervene in whatever life it is that I am

powerless to rescue.

 

prainbow

 

, "Devi Bhakta" <devi_bhakta

wrote:

>

> HONG KONG (March 30, 2006): Growing up in my hometown in Indian

> Punjab, I often heard people remarking to my father, "You are very

> fortunate." It seemed a reasonable statement: In the hothouse of the

> Indian middle class, obsessed with academic performance, were we

> five siblings, each intent on surpassing the excellent scholarship

> of the others.

>

> How much better could it get for my parents? I would shrug with the

> cool assurance of youth; I saw but never registered my father's

> furrowed brow, the questioning upward movement of his hand. It was

> only later, when I moved out of Punjab to study engineering, that I

> began to comprehend, little by little, the nature of my

> father's "fortune."

>

> In a land where people do away with newborn girls, my father had

> four daughters. "Kuree maar" (daughter-killer) is a common

> pejorative in Punjab, yet my father was not only raising four girls,

> but also educating them and sending them to professional colleges.

> To add to the strangeness of it all, the girls began to graduate and

> earn handsome salaries.

>

> Punjab, India's gateway through the ages to conquering armies from

> Persia, Mongolia and Turkey, had distilled its historical wisdom

> into a belief that girls were no good. Centuries back, they were

> carried off by marauding armies as slave booty; today they are an

> inferior commodity in the marriage market.

>

> When their child reaches marriagable age, parents who have sired a

> son (often with considerable help from a sex-determination test) can

> command a Honda car, a house, a flat-screen television, cash, even

> foreign trips - all in the name of the dowry that the hapless

> parents of the bride are obliged to provide. In a patriarchal

> society like Punjab, women are defined by matrimony.

>

> Before marriage, a Indian woman is a cipher. Marriage simply confers

> the decimal point. Thereafter, she can raise her value by becoming

> the mother of sons. It is in her hands, and she understands the

> situation all too well.

>

> The tools are readily available: tin-roofed clinics in dusty towns

> that provide prenatal diagnostic testing and subsequent "medical

> termination of pregnancy," also known as abortion; traveling

> laboratories that conduct on- the-spot ultrasound tests; midwives

> who scour the countryside for pregnant women in need of "help." For

> some, it is never too late to smother a newborn girl under a sack of

> grain, strangle her, or bury her alive.

>

> Punjab, India's granary and its most prosperous state, has added

> another claim to its record: it's the state with the worst child sex

> ratio: 776 girls for every 1,000 boys. There are districts in the

> state where only one girl child has been born in the past six months.

>

> This is giving rise to a whole new breed of women, known as

> Draupadis. In the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata, Draupadi was

> married to five Pandava brothers, and played a central role in the

> story. But she is no heroine, no role model; the regard Indians hold

> for her is apparent in the fact that seldom is a girl named after

> her.

>

> Scarce supply should increase the premium on goods. But in the

> upside-down world that India's women inhabit, everyone wants a woman

> who is somebody else's daughter. Consequently, fraternal polyandry

> is flourishing, institutionalizing violence against women: one woman

> is forced to marry her husband's brothers, and is expected to

> produce sons for each of them.

>

> My father managed to astound his community with his counterintuitive

> act: In a culture that regards the birth of a girl as bad luck, he

> decided that his daughters would be in charge of their destinies. He

> empowered us. To my mind, that simple act is a beacon.

>

> Laws exist in India to safeguard women's rights: polyandry, seeking

> dowry and sex selection all are prohibited. These laws, however,

> need to be publicized and enforced so that women know a legal

> recourse exists for them and that when facing a bully, the first

> step might just be to stand up for their rights.

>

> In one recent instance, a new bride was daily nagged by her mother-

> in-law for more dowry. One day she wrenched open a can of kerosene,

> splashed it on herself and declared she was proceeding to the

> nearest police station to complain that her in-laws' were

> threatening to set her on fire.

>

> The burning of brides after dowry disputes has forced the police to

> sit up. The mother-in-law, chastened, stopped her nagging. The young

> woman was successful because she knew the law existed.

>

> SOURCE: International Herald Tribune. India's Women Battle the 'Bad

> Luck' Label, by Manreet Sodhi Someshwar

> URL: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/29/opinion/edmanreet.php

>

[Guest guest]

Jay Maa

 

This is very sad indeed, somehow in the mists of this i can not seem to

comprehend that is

such vast country so devoted to worship of the Goddess and so Shakti aware , how

can this

prevail to this day? , Hinduism out of all religions and most benevolent

philosophical

thoughts , how did this begin? . I just dont understand this at all .

 

Namaste, Joanna

[Guest guest]

Hi Joanna,

 

As a modern day techno savvy broad-minded Indian living in India, what I know is

that we live with such media reports, and witness the change when this sort of

stuff, feeling a woman/girl as say "inferior or non profitable" is undergoing a

rapid erosion; thank goodness. In such a vast country with a large population

this tide of change is not as quick as we would like, but it is happening.

Remember how it was with women in America and Europe just a few decades ago.

Even now women in the West, in offices still claim its a man's world. However

the change is there. I hope this helps a bit

 

With love,

 

Vir

 

joannapollner <joannapollner wrote:

Jay Maa

 

This is very sad indeed, somehow in the mists of this i can not seem to

comprehend that is

such vast country so devoted to worship of the Goddess and so Shakti aware ,

how can this

prevail to this day? , Hinduism out of all religions and most benevolent

philosophical

thoughts , how did this begin? . I just dont understand this at all .

 

Namaste, Joanna

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visit your group "" on the web.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Messenger with Voice. Call regular phones from your PC and save big.

 

 

[Guest guest]

The dowry Problem in India was caused by the british colonial rule and

their laws which completly changed the economic and social basis of

Indian culture and the rules governing landed property, to conform to

the laws of the one and only god the western culture and society is

aware of: Money. Please see this link:

http://www.asiasource.org/asip/dowry.cfm

 

, "joannapollner"

<joannapollner wrote:

>

>

> Jay Maa

>

> This is very sad indeed, somehow in the mists of this i can not seem

to comprehend that is

> such vast country so devoted to worship of the Goddess and so Shakti

aware , how can this

> prevail to this day? , Hinduism out of all religions and most

benevolent philosophical

> thoughts , how did this begin? . I just dont understand this at all .

>

> Namaste, Joanna

>

[Guest guest]

some excerpts:

 

The word "property." You would think, it is an English word and it

has a very specific meaning. I discovered that in India we didn't

have "property" as in property as a commodity, something that can be

bought and sold, as you think of land. And the key argument that I

make here is looking at the idea of property as having changed

dramatically in the colonial period because when the British took

over the Punjab, they did to the Punjab what they had done elsewhere

in their Empire in the subcontinent, which is simply take the land

(and the Punjab was the wealthiest agricultural land on the planet),

and divide it among those who tilled it. And their reason for doing

this was not to bring modernity and the notions of private property

to India. But the idea was simple: if you assigned every piece of

land a determinate owner, you could also fix on that piece of land a

determinate revenue. And once you have got the revenue fixed, these

assessments of land lasted sometimes three decades -- the same

assessment, despite you losing your job or whether there is a draught

or a pestilence or a hailstorm knocking out your crop.

 

These reasons for assigning land as property completely transformed

the world. This was the deepest social revolution that colonialism

ever performed. They transformed the relations of people to the land

on which they lived. Now you had owners, now you had "haves"

and "have-nots." In the pre-colonial period, you had rights in land

and the right was of use of the fruit of the land. But you did not

buy or sell it. The way people controlled the land was to defend it.

And taxes were paid to support the defense of the land.

 

 

AUDIENCE MEMBER ONE

In some books I have read about India and colonial times, the

distinction you made about property that is so important doesn't get

brought out enough. Could you talk to the previous history of women's

rights in India?

 

VEENA OLDENBURG

I drew a baseline from precolonial to colonial India using the

Colonial Record. The British were not just taking revenue, but they

were also deciding that Punjabis, who were tribal, martial, were like

Scottish clans. They were at great pains to record what the clan

custom might be. They collected customs and wrote them down as laws,

but they also reinterpreted them. For instance in Punjab, wives are

equal. The British called this primitive. They wiped out those

rights, so you find that wives without children were given no rights.

Through reading these, I could understand pre-colonial rights. This

was oral, rendered into a document, mediated through British

officers, so you get a very complicated picture.

 

http://www.asiasource.org/asip/dowry.cfm

 

________________

 

What do you think of western culture and civilization?

 

Ohh yes indeed THAT would be a very good idea.

[Guest guest]

Dear Joanna,

 

I feel I must respond to you: a woman has been celebrated in India as perhaps

no where in thw world, this is one of the surviving bastions of the Goddess

today. However, please do not forget what happened to us, we went through

onslaught from Islam and yes, the Biritish which were essentially onslaughts of

heavily patriarchal socieities and this changed things here for women, sadly.

 

Now, past twenty years have seen a sea change for women in India. Many are

working today not only in the metropols but also small towns, we have women

politicians and statesmen, not forget businesswomen and artistes. But it is a

continous struggle. This is also a very populous country where many people are

rowdy and some are illitrate, so negative events happen here. But the good news

is the change that has happened and is coming about. Even today, we have pockets

of matriarchy in India's North-East and in the South. The youngest daughter

inherits in this set up.

 

So cheers, everything's not dark here. Remeber change came to the West after

the world wars and India is not lagging far behind

 

Tarini

 

 

 

Vir Rawlley <redderred wrote:

Hi Joanna,

 

As a modern day techno savvy broad-minded Indian living in India, what I know is

that we live with such media reports, and witness the change when this sort of

stuff, feeling a woman/girl as say "inferior or non profitable" is undergoing a

rapid erosion; thank goodness. In such a vast country with a large population

this tide of change is not as quick as we would like, but it is happening.

Remember how it was with women in America and Europe just a few decades ago.

Even now women in the West, in offices still claim its a man's world. However

the change is there. I hope this helps a bit

 

With love,

 

Vir

 

joannapollner <joannapollner wrote:

Jay Maa

 

This is very sad indeed, somehow in the mists of this i can not seem to

comprehend that is

such vast country so devoted to worship of the Goddess and so Shakti aware , how

can this

prevail to this day? , Hinduism out of all religions and most benevolent

philosophical

thoughts , how did this begin? . I just dont understand this at all .

 

Namaste, Joanna

[Guest guest]

U r righit Charu.

Akschhar.

 

 

, charu jagat <charu_jagat

wrote:

>

> Dear Joanna,

>

> I feel I must respond to you: a woman has been celebrated in

India as perhaps no where in thw world, this is one of the surviving

bastions of the Goddess today. However, please do not forget what

happened to us, we went through onslaught from Islam and yes, the

Biritish which were essentially onslaughts of heavily patriarchal

socieities and this changed things here for women, sadly.

>

> Now, past twenty years have seen a sea change for women in India.

Many are working today not only in the metropols but also small

towns, we have women politicians and statesmen, not forget

businesswomen and artistes. But it is a continous struggle. This is

also a very populous country where many people are rowdy and some are

illitrate, so negative events happen here. But the good news is the

change that has happened and is coming about. Even today, we have

pockets of matriarchy in India's North-East and in the South. The

youngest daughter inherits in this set up.

>

> So cheers, everything's not dark here. Remeber change came to the

West after the world wars and India is not lagging far behind

>

> Tarini