Indian society, instead of progressing, has actually regressed,

[Guest guest]

" As India hurtles towards progress with a powerful information

technology and business and process outsourcing industry, the

majority of Indians continue to live a life of drudgery. This has

created a situation, especially in the major cities, of rapid and

disorganized urbanization. Penury exists alongside living standards

that can match any in the world.

 

For example, in Delhi, swank buildings designed to house call centers

and other back offices of multinationals are being constructed at a

frenetic pace. To cater to the demands of people employed at these

locations, malls, multiplexes and housing condominiums are being

constructed at an equally fast rate. However, the thousands of

construction workers and laborers needed to build these facilities

are employed at abject daily wages and living in appalling

conditions. Children literally live on the streets, some of whom die

due to disease or are run over by vehicles. Construction workers and

laborers, who form a migrant population in the urban areas,

constitute one of the major perpetrators of crime.

 

Indeed, the high pockets of growth in the country have spawned an

equally desperate and disordered section of the Indian population

just as keen to garner the fruits of growth. Tourism and executive

travel have spawned people such as Jyotish Prasad, who belongs to a

small village in the poverty stricken Bihar, trying to strike out on

his own, whatever be the cost and without proper checks and balances

by the authorities. The call centers have engendered a breed of fast

and reckless drivers who ferry executives to and fro through the

night. Nuclear families and working couples rely on maids and man-

servants to raise families. No proper verification procedures are

followed with the servants, from poor villages, who often turn

against their employers. The kidnapping of children and burglary are

on the rise.

 

Television advertisements and other media try to cater to a mindset

wherein consumerism is flaunted in the form of clothes, cars and

women. One of the most affected is the youth, whether rich or poor.

Those who can earn them fairly do so, but there is an equally

desperate section asserting itself through means not fair.

 

Worsening the situation is the fact that women are discriminated

against and attitudes are primitive. This is reflected in the United

Nations Population Fund's finding of India's declining child sex

ratio in the age group of 0-6 years that makes for the most

depressing news. The country as a whole had only 927 girls to every

1,000 boys in the 0-6 age group, at the dawn of the 21st century,

down from 945 girls per 1,000 boys in 1991. This is in contrast to

the world average of 1,045 females to 1,000 males.

 

The situation deteriorated at an alarming rate in the 1990s. As many

as 70 districts in 16 states witnessed a drop of over 50 points in

the child sex ratio. What was seen as a nascent trend in the 1991

census has become a disturbing reality in 2001.

 

Worse, the killing of female children has spread to the whole of

Indian society; across all religions; in rural as well as urban

areas; among rich and poor. Education levels, development and

prosperity has made no difference, in fact it has only worsened the

situation.

 

" To the extent that social mores and customs are deep-rooted and take

time to change, a constant if unfavorable sex-ratio, distressing as

that might be, could perhaps be explained away. But not a worsening

sex ratio. That is far more damning. It shows that society, instead

of progressing, has actually regressed, " says prominent sociologist

Asis Nandy. "

 

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FC24Df06.html