My religious schooling was ambivalent. My mother didn’t care much about temples and ceremonies. She prayed at home to her Gods and Goddesses – lined up on an old credenza, encircled by yellow blooms of marigold.
The only prayer she chanted was a Sanskrit stuti(praise) to Goddess Durga.
Ya Devi sarva bhuteshu Shakti-rupena samsthitha ; Namastasye Namastasye Namastasye Namo Namaha..
O Goddess, you, who exists in every sphere as Shakti, I bow to you.
Durga is a fascinating Goddess. Imbued with indescribable beauty and strength, she was catalyzed by the collective divine powers of the big league Gods in order to defeat a form-changing, buffalo- headed demon called Mahishasura. According to mythology, Mahishasura terrorized the world, defeated the Gods and booted them out of their heavenly kingdom. A boon from the Gods had rendered him immortal and thus invincible. Interestingly, the boon had a disclaimer – although he couldn’t be defeated by any man or God, it afforded him no protection from a woman. That was his Achilles’ heel, a loophole left open. Beleaguered Gods shamed by humiliating defeat seized upon it – they united their powers and devised Goddess Durga and endowed her with beauty, strength and munitions. She rode on a golden lion, sought out the demon and after a terrific battle, vanquished him and halted a cosmic crisis.
12 million girls were aborted in India since 1981 – reported a 2011 study in the British Medical Journal. The number of girls (0 to 6 years) dropped to 914 girls per 1000 boys for the first time in 64 years in 2011. Research suggested there were about 400,000 sex-selective abortions per year.
Indian religious landscape is full of magnificent Goddesses. In a country where the female form of divinity is worshipped with such ardor, why do we kill off so many girls-to-be?
In all my years of working in Chandigarh, a joint capital for Punjab and Haryana, I read horrific stories in the dailies about discarded female fetuses found in garbage dumps and water wells. A journalist friend told me about a well somewhere in Haryana – crammed full with aborted female fetuses. Every year, countless pregnant women shiver on an ultra-sound table, sticky gel on their abdomens, whimpering in their heads, and dreading the image that would float up in black and white.
The phenomenon of girl-abortion is appalling, but a numbing irony is that most of the folks seeking out these clandestine clinics and medical practitioners are actually everyday regular people. They are loving parents, generous friends, empathetic co-workers and concerned neighbors. They go to temples and stand with folded hands, supplicating to a Goddess to protect them from evil.
Hardly considered a real crime, this practice is a hash of socio-cultural and economic markers. A son is sought for many reasons. A son will earn money, carry out the family name, provide at old age, retain inheritances, whereas a daughter will require dowry for marriage and leave. Dowry is still highly prevalent in parts of India. Father of a bride will beg and borrow to meet unrealistic demands.
“They want my father to install air conditioners in the entire house! Also, give the groom a car. How can my father afford all this?” A young woman working as a HR manager told me with tears in her eyes.
The belief that female infanticide is largely confined to the poor, the uneducated and the rural population is a myth. Technology and clinical infrastructure mostly found in cities play a large part in this, even though banned by legislation. The educated, economically aspirant couples largely subscribe to this practice because they want to curate the gender of the few kids they will have. Climbing literacy rate has not made a difference.
I am not a sociologist or a cultural anthropologist. But, I do understand how a horrific thing can be part of a culture when reinforced and abetted by strong socio-economic propellants. And practice begets perfect desensitization.
How do you change attitudes? Perhaps, by changing what is at stake? If women were viewed as economic contributors, their social value will increase. Despite sharp rise in women’s education, they are largely absent from the workforce, especially from the middle and upper level jobs. Social mores, marriage, child-rearing – all take a toll on a woman’s career. Even with an elevated desire to educate and invest in the girl-child, India ranks 130th on the gender inequality index in 2018.
Flower Vendors in a Kolkata Market
According to McKinsey Global Institute’s 2018 report, The power of parity: Advancing women’s equality in Asia-Pacific, only 25% of India’s labor force is female, contributing only 18 percent of the GDP. The report recommends enablers. Women need easy access to technology to explore and utilize financial resources. They need help to minimize time spent on unpaid work like child-care and cooking.
This year I went to the Durgapuja, the annual worship of Durga, in Austin. The lamps threw a golden glow on the beatific face of the life-size Goddess. Incense smoke rose in cumulus mounds, devotees chanted mantra and Mahishasura sat at her feet – defeated.
The monster of sex-selection remains undefeated.