Re: [nukkad] Infanticide

["Mahesh chandra Gupta" <>]

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This is a serious issue and I wish to offer the following comments. I wish
the readers to deliberate upon my comments calmly and not to get offended as
a knee jerk reaction. What follows is logic and reality. At least as I
perceive it. And, I shall greatly welcome rebuttals [in terms of facts and
logic, not rhetoric and emotion or indignation or vague denial.

1. At the outset, I state my position. I am against all "cide" --- homicide,
femicide or infanticide, even suicide.

2. Having said that, I may add that I am also against intake of all things
harmful to body and, in consequence,  to sociery and the human race. These
things include tobacco, alcohol and addictive drugs like cocaine and
hashish. Likewise, I am also against slavery [and bonded labour], child
labour, dowry and rape and prostitution.

3. There are laws against each of the above evils in India. And each of
these laws is flouted with impunity. The reason is simple. It is easy to
make laws. It is very difficult to enforce them. None can enforce laws if
people do not accept a law. Salt tax resulted in the Dandi march and filling
of jails by satyagrahis, so the British empire, on which the sun never set,
had to bow to a half-dhoti clad Gandhi and withdraw the tax. there was a
time in England, perhaps in King Luis reign, when punishment for smoking was
beheading. It did not stop smoking. we have law against smoking in Delhi.
Its fate is known to all.

4. We must realize that social forces are stronger than laws and law makers.
If laws are thrust upon people without their will, people simply ignore
these. If the government looks the other way, well and good. If the
government tries to enforce an unwanted law, either the govrnment goes [if
it is a democracy] or their is rebellion against the government.

5. In the above perspective, law against female feticide is against social
will and is doomed to failure. [social will can be apparent or real. When
law makers passed laws against dowry and smoking, they did so not because
they were agaist dowry or smoking; they did so because it was the
politically correct thing to do. Similarly, legislators enacted the Prenatal
Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1994, seven
years ago, knowing fully well that their wives and daughters and
daughters-in-law would merrily continue to violate it as earlier.]

6. I submit that though apparent social will is to ban female foeticide, the
real social will is just the opposite. [ I talk here of the majority will,
not that of a few so called intelligentia.]

7. I further submit that society is no fool. Social mores and customs
represent the pooled wisdom of millenia. This wisdom is based upon axiomatic
truths.

8. It is a fact that india is overpopulated and that only women bear
children. Hence it is axiomatic truth that there is direct relation between
the number of female children born and the population birth rate. In other
words, more the number of female births averted, less is the rate of growth
of population.

9. Pooled inherent wisdom of the species, controlled by mysterious species
specific mechanisms, leads to a mass behaviour in the society which is
conducive to preservation of the species. [There are certain animals who
commit mass suicide every few years when their population exceeds optimum
level, threatening their very existence. Even in the lowly weevil, the
insect in flour, the mechanism of reproduction has been studied and it has
been found that reproduction declines when the numbers reach a certain
density. In certain fish, this is possibly achieved by change of sex. It is
very well known that male :female ratio in many species of fish changes in
response to factors like water temperature and pollution level. The males
simply turn into females or vice versa].

10. Since man has become cultured and must speak politically correct
language, we now a days shed tears about phenomena which we want to preserve
but are afraid to so admit. All are hypocrites in certain measure. The
politically hot question currently is the 30% reservation for women in
legislatures. All parties vouch their commitment to this, yet none of them
wants to pass the law. If they pass the law, it would have to be implemented
because of its obviousness. In case of the law against prenatal sex
determination and sex specific abortion, there is no such danger of
obviousness. The government is not supposed to peep into our bedrooms, hence
the law can be safely passed, secure in the knowledge that it will never be
implemented. There has not been a single conviction in the seven years that
the 1994 act has been in place.

11. Do I support female foeticide? Certainly not. I am totally against it as
an individual. But society consists of a far larger number of individuals
who do not share my opinion. And, in a real democracy, the will of the
majority must prevail. And yes, it is certainly prevailing; Homi's number
calculations bear eloquent testimony to this.

12. Lastly, I pass no comments on the veracity of the numbers as given in
the news report. I would have to check on that. May be I revert to the
numbers later.

Sorry, it has turned out to be a long mail. I could not help so.

MC Gupta





----- Original Message -----
From: "HOMI KAIKOBAD" <homik@primenet.com>
To: <nukkad-list@mumbai-central.com>
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 3:16 AM
Subject: [nukkad] Infanticide



>
> INFANTICIDE INDIA
>
> India does not like it's women or is very threatened by them so it kills a
> lot of them when they are girls. CNN reports 5 million girls killed



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