Independence Day!?

Yet another one of them are here. 65th it's being called this time.

What does this day mean to us now? It's a National Holiday for one. It's a day when kids on the traffic signals get a break from begging and get to sell those little tricolors (possibly bulk made in China) to put up on our vehicles, so that we can show to ourselves and others that we are enjoying this day and took a notice of it.

It's that day when children who get to go to schools, have to sing the National Anthem, and get a couple of laddoos, and then it's half day at school. Yeah there is also that big speech at the Red Fort, which is supposed to replace the morning show, and act as an ironical depiction of India (as in the Person on the dais makes it look like it's a great place to live in, and that things are going well). Well, now there is also the new trend of FB posts and Tweets about The Day. Since the law has changed some people even take the day to wear clothes featuring the tricolor.

Talking of emotions this day arises, the bag can be called mixed. Patriotism (yes, it is one of the foremost feelings we are supposed to have today) is often a fleeting phenomenon, which occurs during a particularly touchy scene during the 'Independence Day' special, movie watching spree. Confused anxiety is another of those feelings, which results as the cognizance of the fact that it's a 'Dry Day'. Some other feelings that are evoked are usually on the darker side, if we spare them a moment's thought.

The feeling of all those people having died and toiled in vain, when we consider the present state of affairs. The feeling of irony when even on this day we get discriminated against or showed down by someone higher in the social order we live in. The feeling of sheer disbelief about how hopeless and grim the situation is, where there is just no way out.

In a way, back when we were under British subjugation, things were easier. We all knew who the enemy was, and we were united in our feelings. Now, it's much worse. The enemy now is within us. We have made our enemy such that it can lurk behind familiar faces, and never stand out in crowds. We all have sheltered a little bit of the enemy and therefore pinpointing at someone is just blaming ourselves basically.

This creates the problem of inherent dilemma of distinguishing between the victim and culprit. We are both at the same time, and that means we are stuck up trying to pose as victims sometimes and disguising ourselves from being seen as the culprit at others.

What has Independence meant to us really? Independence of what do we celebrate? Of thought? Action? Of having choices? Of having an equitable distribution of opportunities? Of having removed discrimination? Of having abolished slavery? Of having no oppressors? Of being able to work honestly and expect a fair return? Of having a say in my own life?

If none of the above then what does it mean? If it means nothing of significance why do we go on celebrating it? Is it part of disguising the ugly truth? Of pretending things are going well, like that man on the dais at Red Fort? What is so difficult about acknowledging our mistakes, our shortcomings?

What is so hard about pledging to be better, for real? Perhaps one thing I can think of is that it makes us human. It makes us confess our weakness, and we don't want to do it. Probably not because how we would feel about it, but more so because how would those whom I sit on top of would feel about it. Imagine a day when a Boss confesses he made a mistake in front of his subordinates. What would that do to his reputation? Who would listen to him the next day? Who would respect him? Who would fear him?

Or think of a father who apologizes to his son for doing or saying something he shouldn't have. That would kill the whole point of being a father wouldn't it. It would mean he is short of perfect. Which would mean he can't any longer exercise his right of being a father on his children.

This is the core problem, by confessing to our crimes, we become prone to even more insinuations. We even may become scapegoats for those who weren't as honest as us. We lose our pride and respect, and we lose our own value and the faith in our judgement when we confess we were wrong. If an Indian says, India has a lot of problems, and it all starts within every person that lives in this country, we would hear it as if the words came from within us. And we would act as if, if we would ignore it, the words would slowly fade away like those cries of conscience always have eventually.

But it stings us a lot, when those words come from an outsider. If a foreigner says what a discriminating, corrupt, poor, lazy country India is, we would all in no time put on our proud helmets, and draw our swords. We would start throwing back javelins of Indian culture and how old and nice it is, and we would quote facts of economical development and point to the Audis and Mercedes on our roads as proofs that we are not poor. We would tell them that we treat foreigners with respect and welcome them with open hearts to our lands (while what we really want to say is we welcome white people with all their money gladly, and any other skin color still disgusts us and throws us in to a xenophobic frenzy).

If anyone points out that we are lazy and corrupt we at once start counting to them the number of IITians in silicon valley making millions of dollars, or we start pointing to our IT industry and generic drugs factories. We just would do anything and everything to continue living in our little bubble. Where self satisfaction, complacency, love of status quo, the fear of change, the threat of something or someone finding out who we really are or what we are really worth of beneath our shells would be known.

A country where competency always comes second to knowing someone high up. A nation where meritocracy gets lost somewhere as someone with a reservation gets a high flying career with less than a tenth of your IQ while you toil around in the sun. A place where destiny and luck are the de facto roll back phenomenons when anything goes wrong, instead of acknowledging the lack of planning and hard work. A land where social respect is determined not by achievement, skills, morals or anything else you might have done since you were born but by caste, color, family wealth, or plain old muscle power. A society where the road to success is believed to pass through filth and dirt, and painfully enough no one will believe you if you tell them it's possible to succeed without being dirty, and even more painfully enough people still want to be successful in such a society at whatever compromises they must make for it. This is the sort of place which goes about rejoicing the day of its birth today.

A child born 65 years ago, who grew up to be a person so ashamed of itself, the only way it finds to avoid the truth is to live in the glory of days gone by. The day of its birth a reminder of what it was and what it has come to. A day when probably its only hope lies in some distant future which might have a glimmer of hope or the long lost pride of the past, which sometimes lets him put up his head high. It's the Independence Day, rejoice people, cause we have to keep up the show. 

Female foeticide - a commentary on Satyamev jayate Episode 1

After watching the first episode, and quite appreciating the effort I felt that though the show was well presented, researched and thought of, something very important was amiss. I was discussing the same with some friends that night and found out some interesting answers about certain aspects of female foeticide untouched by the show.

(For a video of the show with English subs go here and click on the English button in the Tab above the video)

Amongst the various things we found when we discussed the causes of female foeticide, the most important was the answer to the question of how could someone become so depraved to actually carry out such an act as murdering a little innocent child. This was one thing missing starkly from the show, a reflection on where this evil came from, what are the beliefs these people are acting under the influence of, and why is it still going on. And most importantly are we ready yet to remove this social illness?

We need to understand Indian history and culture better to find the root of the problem. As was pointed out by the show also, the problem began in Northern India coupled with Rajasthan region, and then gradually spread out to other parts as well.

What was the basis of the thought in the minds of these people, that made them convinced that killing female children was even a fathomable option? Probably the answer lies in the geographical location of North-North West India. Due to its location the region was continuously under attacks from armies from Persia, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Central Europe, Middle East pretty much anyone who could make an army and was within a year or so of marching distance from India just came here to loot. These ongoing wars with first Muslims and then British kingdoms with local Rajput, Jaat, Sikh, Punjabi, Gurjar clans etc made these clans very aggressive, combat oriented, proud and patriotic. Obviously men of the society had to take charge and deal with the enemy with all might, putting them in positions of power and control. The status of women during these times must have started dipping, as we will see later in the post.

The first requirement to fuel any war is able bodied 'men'. Well that at least was the case until 50 years ago. Now if your clan's survival is continuously at stake, due to ongoing wars, you would for the good of the society wish that you would have more able men 'sons', who can fight with you. Your entire society would want the same. Nothing wrong with that desire, totally justified so far since survival has throughout history been the single most strong motivation of all species ever to have lived, and to ensure survival, species are not afraid to take extreme decisions if the need be. So basically in this age, survival of the society was dependent on having larger armies, which was dependent on the number of men a society had, hence the general social acceptance of the fact that sons are more desirable started for the first time for this reason.

Our cinema also often depicts that notion with dialogues like 'If I had another son I would sacrifice him too for the nation' or something like that. So we get an idea, why sons were desirable for survival of the society.
But this didn't mean women were undesirable, does it? After all, whom would the sons wed and who would give birth to more sons? Now here there is a catch, if a society has more men than women, and a war is going on, you know eventually some men would die and the balance would be restored, but the other way around is not true. Women have usually longer lifespans, and safer lives, in absence of a family to be a part of and tend to, a woman's productivity to the society in the middle ages as a single person was limited. There were very few things she could do.

If this number of single, or widowed women increased too much, this might have created a situation of crisis for the clan as food and other resources were limited, and women were not the principle labors in the fields and hence were not seen as contributing a lot to the food problem. (Of course they were doing their bit, but their bit was useful only in conjunction with a male partner, alone their bit of raising a family, creating a future etc didn't have any significance to the society, as there was no family without a husband). So some genius (pun intended) figured out that if we create a male female ratio with a higher number of males than females, we won't have a lot of widows, we won't have to feed a lot of extra women, and we can better use those resources to grow up a soldier and send him to war, the extra men would die in wars and maintain a balance in society. Now well since we all know selective gender breeding isn't an option in humans, the only option left was what is today known as female foeticide.

There was another reason to be vary of being parenting a girl than a male. The reason was the need to constantly protect the girl from invaders and looters. At the time, it was normal for winning hoards of armies to rape and enslave women and girls from the lands they conquered. It was considered reward or payout for their efforts.

On part of the family who lost its girl, it must have been devastating to have her raped and traumatized for life, as today it must have been a loss of family honor then also, or for her to be taken away or killed after having taken care of her and nurturing her for so long. It must have been really frustrating and painful for any parents. And it wouldn't have taken long for people to realize that perhaps if they had a son instead of being raped he could have fought them back, and died respectably.

Still, another reason and probably the most dangerous one was women themselves getting convinced that being a woman was a bad thing. Now this is the biggest challenge even today. Women, because of their physical vulnerability, their helplessness in times of wars etc, were made convinced by others and by circumstances that they were unwanted and unhelpful. They couldn't fight in the battlefield and they couldn't grow food or hunt. And this meant they became subdued due to their dependence on men for protection and food. This led to terrible things. This submission of women to men meant they lost their self esteem, pride, their feeling of self respect and worth. This resulted in them being used by some men as their properties for their lifetimes. This made them a sort of virtual slaves to the men, who in a lot of cases misused the power. And even today it comes out as domestic violence, male dominance etc. even when the situation has changed a lot.

Now imagine a society where the self image of women is very low. She is devoid of any respect for herself, and all the women she sees around her are going through similar traumas. Would such a woman want to bring another girl to life? To go through all the sufferings? There are good chances that if she won't kill her girl child herself, she wouldn't mind a lot if someone else offered to do the job. And in all fairness, with my 21st century ideals and beliefs I can still see the despair of that mother, who for the best interest of her child chooses to let her die, just so that the child won't have to go through what she herself did.

So, no doubt female foeticide has been in North Indian culture for centuries now, up until around 60 years back, it most probably was never felt in such a severe amount because:
1. Lots of men died untimely early deaths, leaving the ratio more or less equal, that has changed now with no more wars, dangerous jobs or diseases.
2. Families used to be really large, 5-10 children were normal to any couple, so having 2-3 girls in a 6 children pack wasn't considered too bad, the male children used to be the ones looked upon but the females were accepted too as part of the deal. Now families are 2 or 3 children max, so having a boy in them is lesser chances than it was in 6 children, hence the female foeticides, so that people don't end up having 5 children to have one boy.
3. There were no ultrasound machines back then. So the only was out was the cruel one to actually kill a newborn, which was done by ways like putting a tobacco in the mouth of the baby or techniques like that and were usually executed by mid-wives or elder women of the family. Still actually killing a child was a difficult thing and probably stopped a lot of people from doing it, despite them having preferred male children.
4. There was nothing like a national census to actually count people, so if there was a large difference it wasn't felt, as sooner or later men died in wars and became equal.

The reasons as discussed above changed in last few years, they became:
1. Avoidance of dowry, if you don't have a girl
2. The family legacy thing, for which you need to have at least one male child.
3. The physical insecurity associated with young girls, which continued to be a reason even to this date.

Together these three reasons comprise of the premise which leads to any ordinary man/woman to turn in to a girl child killer. The biggest reason is one of these three has happened in a lot of families or in direct relatives, so people understand the pain of having to give all your life's savings to get your daughter married in a decent family, or the pain of having your daughter kidnapped or raped, so in most cases having daughters is a cause of severe mental distress as it starts a chain of responsibilities and difficulties in an already difficult life of a middle/lower class Indian family, and sometimes people just can't take that extra responsibility and end up doing things that they do.

A closer look at the three reasons tell us that the first two, are sort of obvious direct reasons, dowry has been worked upon a lot in last few years from a lot of Government and social initiatives, and we can feel there has been some relief in the number of such cases that now come up. Hopefully the numbers will continue to reduce.

The family legacy thing, is now not such a big female foeticide reason, unless lets say the first 3 or 4 children are all females, which is a little rare. And even in such a case if female foeticide happens, at least 2-3 girls are already  born, which is no less than a bright side, in what's otherwise a grim situation.

The third reason is the one which has surprisingly held on beyond the middle ages, and is the biggest challenge we face today. 65 years have passed since India got independence and we haven't been able to make our country a safe place for women. Until we do that how can mothers feel safe giving birth to girls. And fathers would always live in the fear and paranoia of something bad happening to their daughters. In a society where paedophiles, kidnappings, gangrapes, acid throwing incidents, eve teasing going to new lows are on a rise, we can't judge people who are afraid to bring a girl to this world. As shown in the second episode of the show 53% of all children in India have been subjected to some form of sexual abuse during their childhood. Obviously our society is not a safe one, for our children or women.

I know from some of my female friends, how barbaric men in public transports or public places can be with women. They spare no chance of touching or grabbing whatever they can lay hands on and using whatever excuse they can figure out. It doesn't help that our public transports are so full of people, personal space is actually not possible, and the women are just helpless in such situations as they can't really do anything about it, they can either stand and suffer it in silence or avoid traveling or going out of homes at all. But then homes aren't too safe either, with so many cases of domestic violence and sexual abuse by relatives etc filling up newspapers for decades now.

This brings us to another much tabooed and still very prevalent issue of incestuous relations or neighbors or other close family males taking advantage of young girls. The problem is that girls are so uninformed and so subdued that in most cases they never tell anyone for fear that they themselves would be reprimanded and probably grounded, which is also a true fear in most cases. The use of mobile phones and cameras in recent years, that have led to so many well known MMS and blackmailing cases, is only the tip of the iceberg. For every case that is publicized there are a 100 that are not and women continue being exploited, due to this silence our society has put on itself.

The reason for such indecent behavior by men is unfortunately driven by something which is a result of the that behavior by men, so it's a vicious cycle. Now India doesn't have the Muslim armies raping and looting all they find on their victorious paths. But the feeling of insecurity on part of parents, didn't go away when it should have had, that is right after Britishers left. India should have felt more comfortable and should have let their girls a little more free, their guards a little low. This didn't happen or happened and had bad consequences in some rare cases and so the people continued to treat their girls the way they were doing in the 16th century.

As a result impositions such as don't talk to boys, don't look at them in the eyes, don't encourage them. Don't wear provocative clothes, don't do or say provocative things, don't go out alone anywhere, come back home before dark, don't talk to strangers, don't study in co-ed schools, don't sit near boys in your class, don't make friends with them, don't fall in love with anyone, boys are bad, they will use you in some way etc etc, the long list goes on were drilled down our girls as soon as they learnt to talk. What happened as a result?

Boys and girls didn't know anything about each other, at all. Boys, who became adolescent and had never once talked to a girl as a friend came in to existence (I personally and I went to a good co-ed school and came from a good family background had no female friends till I was 18, and that too was an internet friend, the first real female friend was all the way when I was 21 years old, in final year of university)

Leave alone knowing or understanding that girls also were normal humans, their only source of information became other boys of their age who had heard something about some girl from somewhere and these extreme cases became the basis for all boys to look at all girls. Things like, if a girl wears tight clothes she is inviting men, if she looks at you in the eyes she is interested in you, if she wears revealing clothes, she doesn't mind being touched or you are free to take advantage of her because she is obviously open minded. The distorted notions of sex and women in the minds of these men who grew up never actually having talked to a girl apart from their sisters perhaps, are the real cause for the way they look at women and eventually treat them.

It is imperative to consider the presence of a sister in the family in this scenario. Because, some people would think that if a boy has had a sister in the family, he must learn about girls, and would learn to respect and understand them. This is not always the case, in fact the presence of a sister can often become an example for the boy to learn from, as to how to treat women. And this example much more often than not is a bad one. As discussed above, most of the restrictions in the family apply only to girls, they are supposed to dress appropriately, act appropriately etc etc. Also discrimination exists in other forms too, girls are not sent to as good schools as boys (as the boy should receive the better education, if money is in shortage), girls are not given sufficient nutrition as compared to their brothers and most importantly, girls are not given enough support by the family to be herself, to have an identity, to pursue her goals. What does a boy learn from all this, when it is a daily affair? And this is coupled with violence ill treatment against his mother and other females in the family, making the situation worst. So the existence of sisters or mothers in their life, only makes the situation worse for most guys, as they become used to women being treated as secondary citizens.

These notions come in to picture because no parent would let their daughters to talk to any boys, which they rightly do because these boys have such distorted notions about girls. A perfect vicious cycle.

And the solution can't simply be that parents should allow their daughters to be a little more open to boys, because the age that this happens is a very vulnerable age and we could see a huge surge in early age pregnancies and lot more cases of affairs at the ages of 13-16 or even less if such an unthoughtful action in suddenly implemented. That would be generating a new social problem while trying to eradicate an old one. Although perhaps that problem (if the pregnancies could be avoided through proper sex education of minors, and guidance by teachers, parents and social groups) would be a lesser one than that of female foeticide and sexual abuse and harassment against women.

Just imagine, if all those eve-teasers had a girl friend, or had ever known a girl close enough to understand that they too are humans, and there is a more dignified way of approaching and getting their attention than attacking them in groups or groping at them in metro or buses, then probably they would not do something so indecent. We need to remove the taboo girls are for a young Indian male, we need to end the male female cold war that goes on in most Indian classrooms and neighborhoods even today and even in so called modern top end schools.

My 8 year old cousin is afraid to talk to girls of his class, simply because whenever he has had the chance to do that, it so happened, the girls were offended one way or the other, complained to the teacher with some tears in their eyes, and every time my cousin got punished irrespective of what the issue was or whose fault was it.  It's like trying to compensate for the unfairness that our society is to women by being unfair to men. Now why doesn't anyone intervene in a correct manner here? Don't the teachers notice that no boys of the class talk to any girls of the class? Don't the parents notice, that the child has no female friends? This attitude will only cause more problems than solve any.

More than anything else, it's important that people think about the reasons why these things happen, and understand that it is every little thing we tell to our little son/daughter or nephew/niece that forms the basis for how he/she would treat women/men. As pointed out by a reader, this could be the most practical starting point of eradicating the problem. Effort needs to be put on the children of today, special emphasis needs to be paid in schools and homes, to send the message, that girls and boys are equal in every aspect. And to back up the talk, it must be implemented by treating the girls of the family the same as the boys. Domestic violence, needs to stop and no laws can do it, because unless the wife complains to the Police there is no case. And since the woman is so used to violence to her, since she has been brought up watching all the women in her life treated like that, and since she has no financial independence she can't really do anything, although the fact is she never even feels she is oppressed, that treatment is just normal for her.

The problem is looking at this at their homes makes it normal even for the children as they grow up and then they do the same. Efforts about spreading awareness that women have rights too, working towards financial independence of women, making them aware of their rights, making them aware that being beaten up is not acceptable are going to go a long way. As long as no one stands up against the status quo, it's just going to seem normal to let things be as they are. Women support groups, education for women, opening up to ideas of independence and individuality etc will show the way ahead and will slowly create a good cycle.

That would make all the difference eventually. TAKE THE TABOO OFF WOMEN. Let them be just normal, don't make them feel inferior, treat them as equals. About 46% of us all are women that's not such a bad number, let's not make them farther away from our reach, let's make an environment where females feel safe in talking to us, let them trust men, and let our actions say this. India more than anything else today needs a revival of its women.

This is the responsibility of decent Indian men and women now to make our country a better place for women.

Once again a brave effort by Satyamev Jayate to highlight a very important issue, hopefully they will from future episodes give due consideration to explaining the actual cause of issues rather than just getting sympathy from the plight of victims.

Satyamev Jayate...