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BY Trupti Shah (Sahiyar Stree Sangathan)
Sahiyar Stree Sangathan, a Vadodara-based
trust, provides legal and counseling support to women in crisis. It is
also involved in a campaign against sex determination tests. The group
recently conducted an intensive cross-sectional study, which threw up
rather startling results about the declining sex ration in Gujarat. Trupti
Shah, Sahiyar member and economics lecturer at M S University, Vadodara,
speaks to Chitra Padmanabhan about the falling status of women in one of
India’s mist ‘developed’ states:
Gujarat is
considered one of the most developed states of India, with rapid
industrializations and a rising urban population. Why do you find this
form of development ‘anti-women’ and ‘anti-girl child’?
During the Census decades of 1981-91 and 1991-2001,
Gujarat’s rapid industrialisation pushed up urbanization to 37
per cent as against the national average of 27. The two decades also
witnessed a rise in literacy rate to 69.98 per cent, with female literacy
reaching 58.60 per cent. However, this period also saw the beginning of a
rapid decline in the overall sex ratio. The female-male child sex ration
(0-6 years) plunged well below the national average (from 947 in 1981 to
928 in 1991 and 878 in 2001), manifesting a virulent form of gender
discrimination through sex-selection practices.
At
850, this negative sex ratio was higher in the ‘developed’ urban
districts. Ahmedabad district headed the tally with just 813 girls for
1000 boys. Ironically, districts like Mehsana (797), Gandhinagar (816),
Rajkot (843) and Ahmedabad enjoyed above-average female literacy rates of
64, 65, 67 and 71 per cent respectively, tribal districts of Dangs, Dahod
and Narmada, with low female literacy reates of 49, 32 and 47 per cent
respectively, have seen higher child sex ratios of 973, 964 and 952. The
‘urbanised’ cities are even bigger culprits. Ahmedabad leads with a
child sex ratio of 809, followed by Rajkot (821), surat (830) and Vadodara
(832). What has gone wrong in the last two decades?
Unlike the South, Gujarat’s sex ratio has not been positive from
the beginning of the 20th
century. The practice of female infanticide – ‘duth piti’
(the drowning a new-born girl in a milk pot)- was prevalent among some
castes even themn. During our field study, however, we found that the
interaction of historical patriarchal values with capitalist development
has affected women quite adversely.
Earlier, the non-participation of women in social production was
confined to handful of castes but, today, more and more women are getting
pushed to the economic margins; their work participation rate in fact is
even lower in urban areas. Greater Sanskritisation – lower caste people
adopting upper caste norms to achieve social status-coupled with
consumerism, has meant that the dowry phenomenon, for instance, has spread
even to castes that did not historically practise it. Our research shows
that economic uncertainty has increased ‘son-preference’ among poorer
classes/castes, while the small family norm has led to the same trend
among the rich and the upper castes. The availability of sex-determination
technology has contributed greatly to this trend.
Many upper middle class families, who want just one child, prefer a
son while those who want two are okay either with two sons or a son and a
daughter. Once a daughter is ‘allowed’ to be born, gender
discrimination reduces at the family level, which gives the impression
that it is ceclining with development. But discrimination at the pre-birth
stage in fact increases, leading to a more negative sex ration.
Is there any link between affluence and violence against
women?
With affluence, the forms of
violence become more intense and their axtent may actually increase.
Today, many medical professionals market sex determination facilities for
easy money; others do so to spread family planning, thinking of it as a
form of social service. Sex selective termination of pregnancies
represents not just violence against the unborn girl but also results in
further violence on existing women. In societies where there are fewer
women, they are subjected to various forms of domestic and social violence
this is a manifestation of the inherent negative attitude towards women.
How do you locate violence
against women in the context of communal conflicts?
There is a link both between
different forms of violence against women, and between violence against
women and other forms of social violence. During community houour, are
subjected to sexual violence to ‘shame’ the men of their community.
Tis happened to Muslim women last year. Women are also considered a
greater ‘liability’ for their families and the community, as the mass
marriages of teenaged girls in relief camps (following the riots) showed.
But there have been several pro-women
political and legislative initiatives in the past two decades.
Political parties that
‘support’ gender issues, without an acceptance of issues of social
violence and discrimination, dabble in tokenism. This is also true of the
Indian government’s women’s empowerment policies or the Gujarat
gobernment’s Gender Equity’ initiative. The struggle to end gender
discrimination must be linked to a struggle against all forms of social
violence and exploitation.
(Women’s Feature Service)
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