12 Million Killed!

No, this is not because of war, or a terror attack; not because of an earthquake or a tsunami; not because of SARS or foot and mouth disease.

Let me rephrase it to represent the entire context:

Sex-Selection Abortions Kill 12 Million Girls in India

So now you know. The 12 million figure covers abortions on girls over the course of the last 30 years. And it should be more alarming with the context given, when compared to the simplistic message that was the subject line of this post.

And what’s more alarming is that this trend is on the rise – of the 12 million selective abortions between 1980 and 2010, 3 to 6 million was in the last decade alone. What does this mean?

I don’t know where I am going with this statistic or this post. But all I can muster to say is that we are a land of the hypocrites – yes, time and again we prove it. Whether it be about sex being a taboo, and yet multiplying like rabbits (population count, anyone?) or whether it be the way we treat women.

We confer the greatest respect and honour to womanhood – we call our country matrubhoomi, Mother India or dharti maa. We worship women in the form of Gods; heck, three of the most important portfolios of the Devaloka is held by women: Finance (Goddess Lakshmi), Education (Goddess Saraswati) and Defence (Goddess Kali/Durga)! We sing Ambe maa ki aarti, and yet don’t hesitate to slap our wives, physically and mentally torture women or even rape them. We don’t care about sthree being the dhan, and create a ruckus about sthreedhan. A gas cylinder explosion where the woman ‘accidentally’ died is just a normal occurrence. We don’t mind if women jump into the pyre of their husbands, have kids at the age of fifteen or if they lead desolate lives after being widowed. We don’t care for her aspirations or bother about her health or welfare. They are the bojh of the family, best packed off to sasuraal after byaah.

The myth that only the poor and illiterate resort to female foeticide has been trashed in this study, since it was found out that the educated and wealthy are increasingly adopting (pun intended) such measures. After all, they are aware of ultrasound scans and have deep pockets to sponsor abortions. So much for being intelligent, educated and rich!

Which reminds me, have you seen the movie ‘Matrubhoomi: A nation without women’? If you haven’t, I recommend you do. Immediately. It’s one of those movies which made me cringe in my seat. And left me feeling disgusted. Absolutely, wholesomely disgusted. The movie is a take on futuristic India, and explores the impact of female infanticide and gender imbalance. Yes, it illustrates India without enough women to f***. The rest I leave to your imagination.

When all’s said and done, more is said than done. And so will it be. In this case too.