Whenever the next Lok Sabha elections are held, all parties must press for a strong legislation to prevent the continuing slaughter of girl babies all over India. The short term objective may be to win votes, but in the long run, it will save the country from an impending demographic disaster.
Meanwhile, it is a wonder that no one in a position of authority, seems to be concerned about the terribly negative image of India that is taking roots abroad. Quite apart from the occasional patronizing newspaper reports and TV analyses, even medical journals are now addressing the issue of female foeticides in India as a phenomenon to be studied.

500,000 female foetuses are aborted annually in India and it noted that in states like Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh, the ratio of girls to boys had dropped from 870 to 817 and 900 to 789, per thousand, in recent years. Abortions are being reported from both rural and urban areas, but the attendant factors as well as the social context, differ widely. In the villages, the lack of proper facilities, medical help, low levels of education and expert advice may account for some loss of lives. Bui in the urban areas, even affluent sections of the society, lacking neither means nor education, are perhaps guiltier of creating the long-term demographic imbalance whose consequences can only be imagined.

Unless the states and the central governments crack down hard on such abor¬tions, they may have look further and longer for their brides. In a country as big as India, it may never be possible to estimate accurately the number of female foetuses that are being destroyed systematically in so many States. No wonder normal girls to boy’s sex ratio have had more and more skewed over the decades. Now the situation has obviously deteriorated well beyond that. Worse, even the otherwise scientific method of tests, used to determine the sex of babies still in the womb, has been misused by bigoted parents and corrupt doctors. According to one estimate, illegal operations to destroy unwanted foetuses have turned into a major component of the black economy, accounting for well over Rs 1000 crore annually.

It is not as though there is no legislation to deal with such crimes. With most crimes, establishing guilt can be extremely difficult, time-consuming and expensive, given the backdrop of a conspiracy of silence. However, the lack of efforts on part of the official machinery and the political parties of the country to address the situation has been truly astounding. The existing dowry system is also a major cause, especially in the Hindi-speaking heartland and Punjab. The worst ratio at present has been reported from Punjab, in many ways India’s most successful state, financially speaking. Here, the number of girls to boys has gone below 800.

History has shown to fight the abominable suttee system, Raja Ram Mohan Roy was supported by the ruling British in his Endeavour, who threatened those guilty of burning widows with immediate penal action. Vidyasagar’s efforts to introduce re-marriage for young widows also helped. Today we need men like Roy, Vidyasagar and Mahatma Gandhi again, to save the helpless girl child in India.