There was a debate in Big fight program yesterday in NDTV. Among the panelists and invities present was Honourable minister for Social welfare Mrs. Renuka. It was interesting to listen to various arguments by the panelists and participants. Finally the arguments for permitting the sex determination was subdued by the majority view, which in my opinion was due to the moralistic tendencies of participants,rather than rational approach to the problem.
I should explain this by recollecting a small incident happened about 12 years ago. I was on transfer from Mumbai to Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat in the year 1996. I fixed up an accommodation in a hurry which happened to be a small two bedroom apartment on the second floor ofa building and without a car park. When my family came the accommodation looked ridiculously small as we had my inlaws and a ailing grand mother-in-law besides my 2 children.
We therefore started our frantic search for a bigger accommodation. We came to know about this public servant who was having a palatial house in sector no 21 which was incidentally very close to my office.
In order to enquire,I visited his house alongwith my wife. On pressing the door bell, we were taken inside by an young girl of about 25. She made us comfortably seated in their sprawling drawing room when another girl brought water for us to drink. Even as we waited for the landlord, we could see more number of young girls moving about here and there. Now came the landlord who was in his early 50s. He was well built and appeared to be in a commanding position in the pubic works department of Gujarat government.
He started explaining about the upper portion having two big bedrooms and access from outside which was available for rent and about the terms etc. He went on to tell us the history about how he constructed the house using best of materials, what he expects from the tenants etc
Finally one small boy of 4 years age came inside the hall calling him "papa" and jumped on to his lap! By then, from our expressions, he could sense that we both were intrigued by the presence of too many young girls in the house. To our surprise he said, "what are you looking at? Don't worry.... all the girls you see are my children only... This boy is my son... who is 12th and last....
"Hama reliye kaise be ek ladka laanekka thaa..."
(We had to have one son at any cost!)
We were amazed by his perseverance in getting a son at least prior to his retirement from service!
Later on during our 4 and a half years of experience in Gujarat, we found that sex selection is rampant in Gujarat. Handling large number of Medical Insurance claims we found that there were several cases of abortions of female foetuses happening and, also large number of population putting up a fulstop to pregnancies only after getting a male child after having a number of successive female issues.
In the NDTV debate, Honourable Minister admitted that sex selection and termination of pregnancy is more pronounced amongst urban population who are well informed. In rural india, we have seen the infanticides of female children happening on regular basis. It is also commonly heard that men folk go on to marry another woman if their wives could not deliver male babies, after repeated deliveries.
Instead of taking a decision to ban the sex selection, now the government should come out with a novel regulation some thing like this: Permit sex determination for couples who have 2 children and want to select the third one. They can be legally permitted to have a child of their choice either boy or a girl. At the same time impose penality or tax for those having 3 or more children. This will prevent the citizens from recklessly trying for a particulars sex child and also act as a population control mechanism. This way the demography pattern of male/female sex ratio can be automatically balanced.
All said and done, I do not want to touch on the ethical aspect of this practice which shall be left to the individuals and their personal beliefs as to whether one should exercise this legally permitted facility or not.
Having imposed a self proclaimed morotorium for having further children, inspite of having children of same sex I feel that Iam eligible to express the views on this subject, I should also clear your doubts about termination of pregnancy which we have never ever resorted to!
At present, clinics and doctors are seen as rogues and criminals who are supporting the 'illegal desire" of many couples wanting to have a selection of baby, in a society which is now gallaping towards designer babies by cloning,sperm banking, in-vitro pregnancy and sorogate pregnancy procedures.
By allowing the sex determination under a regulation like the one I have mentioned above, It would be still possible to allow the benefit of technology and medical advances to public, yet safeguarding the interest of the Nation.Now I want the readers comments on this issue.
3 comments:
Interesting and avery thought provoking article.Ido agree with you still many parts of India people prefer to have male child.Olden days if you look every family they will have minimum 6-8 children.Even though govt.of India intoduced familyplanning ,many places this type of things happening.The reason behind is Sentiments to have male child.Society should change.India has not fully successful in the Family planning.
K.Ragavan.
In China they have a norm of only one child, whether boy or girl. We too should have a norm for total number, irrespective of sex.
Pre-delivery sex determination should be prohibited.
It is like distribution of Prasadam in a temple - one may get Sarkarai Pongal, one may gay get Puliyodarai and one may get Thayir Sadam. The devotees should not be allowed to open a particular pack and select.
First of all, India should not allow couples to have more than 2 children. And sex determination, before the birth of the child, under any circumstances should be prohibited.
i have blogged about this too. There is so much female foeticide in the country especially in Punjab that there are no girls. The parents of boys have to "import" girls from states like West Bengal. Girls as young as 14. Which is obviously illegal.
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