DESPITE ALL bottlenecks created by opposition parties to stop her from contesting the presidential election as an UPA-Left alliance candidate, Pratibha Patil fought and finally emerged as a winner. This is a great accomplishment for Indian women since she is the first woman President of India. Although it is a well-known fact that we have tried a lot to promote women of India in every field be it defence, health, sports, politics, entertainment or literature, this is one of the best examples of that.

The world’s super power whose main aim is to bring so-called democracy has a woman running for the post of President. But we, Indians have provided an opportunity to a woman to occupy the highest constitutional post of the country. But it is unfortunate that even after sixty years of Independence women are not getting the respect they deserve.

The study published in the online edition of The Lancet, a medical journal reveals that over the past two decades around 10 million female foetuses may have been aborted in India. The study by Prabhat Jha from St. Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto, Canada; Rajesh Kumar from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India and colleagues concludes that prenatal sex determination followed by abortion of female foetuses may be the reason for the alarming 10 million “missing” female births.

As a part of the study, researchers looked at the data on female fertility from an ongoing Indian national survey of 6 million people, living in 1.1 million households, and analyzed information from 133,738 births. They found that fewer females born as second or third children to families who are yet to have a boy, and that the sex of the previous child or children affects the sex ratio of the current birth. A fall in the number of girls born as second children has been found more than twice in case of educated mothers as compared to illiterate mothers. However, the religion factor does not affect the number.

Based on the natural sex ratio available from other countries, the team estimated that around 13.6 to 13.8 million girls should have been born in 1997 in India. However, the actual number was 13.1 million—a difference of 0.59-0.74 million female births. According to Dr Jha with 0.5 million “missing” girls yearly due to prenatal sex determination and selective abortion, after two decades the figure of 10 million missing female births would not be unreasonable.

According to “Trafficking in Women Migrants: Issues of Concern in South Asia" by Chinese J. Onyejekwe, PhD, Sociologist published in Pakistan Journal of Women’s Studies: Alam-e Niswan, 2004 –Worldwide, it is estimated that more than 700,000 women and girls are trafficked every year. Human traffickers drag a large number of women and girls into the sex industry usually by promising them good pay. Unfortunately, after reaching there, the women are often kept like prisoners by their employers and crime syndicates who saddle them with unlawful debts.

If you go through the present male-female sex ratio, you will find a ratio of 933 female on 1000 male. Punjab is the worst hit, where the sex ratio is 750 females on 1000 males. In this regard almighty Allah (God) says in the Quran, “Paradise fall beneath the feet of mother.” Even, Muslims are not doing justice with their female child. Although, neither Quran nor any Hadith permits to kill unborn baby whether it is male or female. If anybody does this it would be considered as a major sin.    

Recently on May 8, we celebrated Mothers Day and a lot had been talked in newspapers and on news channels about how people are treating their mothers on this important day. Thanks to Hindustan Times (Old is Bold; June15, 2007) that brought the ugly face of society in front—a mother had to file a case against her own children because of the brutal treatment she had been receiving from them. Pravati Parab 75 said, “I thought if I file a case against my son, I will at least get to see him and ask where I went wrong in bringing him up. I have not seen him for ten years now. My hearts bleeds… after all I am a mother.”

Numbers of non-government or government organizations are making efforts to convince the people that girl is equal to a boy. She has a zeal to do more than males and we have examples of some courageous women, namely Kiran Bedi, Kalpana Chawla, Sunita Wlliam, Sonia Gandhi, Shiela Dixit, Renuka Chaudhry, Sania Mirza, Karnammaleswary, P T Usha, Arundhati Roy, Lata Mangeshker, Asha Bhosle, Anne Besant, Lakshmi Baee and Indra Gandhi who have always kept Indian flag up in other countries with their hard work. But still the ideal family is considered complete with one boy and a girl and this is reflected in cinema and in TV serials also.

So, when Pratibha Patil is assuming the charge of the highest post in India, is it a true celebration for a country where about 60 per cent women are illiterate, more than 50 per cent women are compelled to live under poverty line and approximately 25 per cent of women are struggling for daily bread and butter?

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