Declining sex ratio in India

By Tufail Jarul
No nation, society or community can hold its head high and claim to be the part of civilized world if it condones the practice of discrimination against one half of the community. Continuing preference for boys in society, for the girl child the apathy continues, the child sex ratio in India has dropped to 914 females against 1,000 males, one of the lowest since Independence according to Census 2011.Declining sex ratio is a silent emergency. But the crisis is real, and its persistence has profound and frightening implications for society and the future of humankind.
This article provides an overview on the declining sex ratio in India, reasons behind it and what need to be done to overcome the situation. Every national census has documented a decline in the sex ratio, signalling a ubiquitous trend. Despite a slew of laws to prevent female foeticide and schemes to encourage families to have girl child, the sex ratio continuously declined, it is a matter of grave concern for the India. It showed a continuing preference for male children in the last decade. The low sex ratio is not just confined to the rural belts, the ratio in urban areas is significantly lower than those in rural parts of the country according to 2011 Census. Changing sex ratios among children are going to have a lasting impact on population dynamics in India, as most of today’s births will survive for more than 60 years.
If we have a look of child sex ratio among the different regions of India. North India has 923, Eastern India 942, North East 954, North West 875 and South India has 948 child sex ratio. The sharpest decline in sex ratio of the child population has been observed in north western States followed by Northern States. It indicates the sex ratio continues to plummet in the Bimaru states. The divide between north, northwest India and South India has got even starker with the Jammu and Kashmir child sex ratio falling precipitously to 859 in 2011 census making it the third worst state after Haryana and Punjab. India’s north east seems to have a much healthier attitude to girl children than the rest of the country in 2011 census. The declining sex ratio is warning signal for the nation to wake up. The caution should be taken seriously, we are leading towards a crisis situation.
It is a disgrace for all of us where the birth of girl child considered as a bad investment in future. She is considered to be consumer rather than a producer. Escalating demands of dowry was cited as the main reason behind it. Daughters were unable to provide social security to parents and called for unnecessary investment on themselves, the fruits of which were taken away by the in-laws. It is great fear that the decline in sex ratio might lead to degradation of moral values in the society resulting in polyandry, violence against women, red trafficking etc.
The steady decline in the sex ratio suggests that marked improvements in the economy and literacy rates don’t seem to have any impact. In fact, the availability of new technology helped the urban, well off families and educated to misuse it and ultimately it leads to harm the status of the society. Prosperity does not bring good fortune for girl child. It is good time to look who really is responsible for this. According to census 2011, the states with the worst sex child sex ratio are not the most backward, the economically well off states have lowest sex ratio like the prosperous agrarian states of Haryana and Punjab bear the ignominy of low sex ratio. This census shows that high literacy is not a good proxy for the healthy gender balance like Maharashtra with a literacy of 83 percent has 883 child sex ratio, while Chhattisgarh, with just 71 percent overall literacy and 61 percent women literacy, has a Child sex ratio of 964. This indicates that mere education has not been enough to correct a deep societal and cultural bias that the India seems to have against girls.
There are multiple factors behind the trend of declining sex ratio. Sex selection and medical technology is misused in India for detecting the sex of unborn child and ultimately for the sex selection, Female foetuses, thus identified and aborted. Many studies have shown that Pre Natal Sex Determination is the main reason of low sex ratio in India followed by abortion of female foetuses. Besides the misuse of the technology, the patriarchal societies in many parts of India have translated their prejudice and bigotry into a compulsive preference for boys and discriminations against the girl child. Women work is always socially devalued with limited autonomy in decision making. Patriarchy always maintains a strong hold on the gender inequality.
Sex determination tests are seen as providing a ‘reproductive choice’ – a choice to decide to have a boy or a girl. Soon after the sex determining techniques, in 1983 Indian parliament banned the practice of sex determination in all public institutions. But the prime legislation Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques act, passed in 1994, after a long campaign by the civil society and women organisation and certain. The law is enforced at both the national and regional levels. At the same time, many difficulties and loopholes in the provisions of the Act lead to unsatisfactory results like lack of resources to carry out inspection and monitoring, lack of corresponding qualified staff, poor performance of advisory committees at various levels, insufficient understanding of the law and procedural errors.
The surplus of males in a society leads to lack of marriageability, and consequent marginalization in society, may lead to anti social behaviour and violence, threatening societal stability and security.
The suggestive measures which flew unabated from the study included strict implementation of laws banning female foeticide and dowry, providing old age pension for parents who had no son, free and compulsory education for girls, job reservation for women in specific occupations and giving them an equal share in the property, in the true sense of the word. Efforts should be made to implement these laws effectively. Strict punishment should be given to the defaulters. Dowry is the main cause of low sex ratio. The trend of taking and giving of dowry which takes place mostly in educated and upper class homes can be discouraged by laws and awareness among the peoples
Moral education should be imparted in schools. Children should be taught to uphold morals and refrain from practices of dowry, female foeticide, and gender bias. The vulnerable minds of the children should be so influenced that they grow up as adults who consider practicing dowry and female foeticide as immoral. Women should also be socialized from early childhood to consider themselves as equal to men. This would be a positive influence on the coming generations as today’s girl child would be tomorrow’s mother as well as mother in-law.
The study suggests that only the sex ratio as an individual or related to the misuse of medical technology or the legal interventions with laws to end the practice reflect poor understanding of the problem. While strict laws only can control the female infanticide and foeticide, it will not eliminate the problem completely. The major barrier in the way towards the balanced gender structure is gender inequality based on the socio-cultural issues. The systematic discrimination of the females needs to be tackled from our society.
The concerns regarding declining female population in India is to rise above the social domain issue to become a political, economic and reformist issue and the entire society must be sensitised. We are living through a ‘civilization crises’. The challenge can only be met by all on round realisation that even in the patriarchal set up, it is essential to maintain a natural balance between the sexes failing which not only the social system, but also entire economic system would get damaged beyond repair. In order to marshal support of various groups and channelizing the efforts in a focussed manner, government must take a lead in establishing a mission for balancing the sex ratio by the next census operation through a coordinated mix of reinforcement programmes and support mechanism.
(The author is Research Scholar, School of Social Sciences JNU)

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