March of A Million
Against the scourge of Female Foeticide
For many years, there have been reports of baby girls being deliberately killed at birth, either deliberately or through neglect, in India. Professor Amartya Sen, a Nobel prize laureate, calls them India's "Missing Girls". And their number is swelling day by day. In 1991 there were around 25 million "Missing Girls." A decade later, their number had swelled to 35 million, and continues to increase exponentially.
The growing availability of ultra-sound and other pre-natal screening techniques to all sectors of society, despite measures implemented to prevent the abuse of such techniques, partly explains this rise in the number of "Missing Girls." Even though pre-screening to determine gender is illegal in India, it is very evident that sex selection and abortion clinics are still widespread. (Since pre-natal scans to check for abnormalities is legal, it is very difficult to prove that an unscrupulous doctor may have used such a test to reveal a baby's gender).
The root causes of female foeticide and infanticide remain , however, rooted in societal attitudes and prejudices. The time when the birth of a girl child in the family was greeted as the arrival of "Lakshmi", the Hindu goddess of wealth, is long past. For some time now, girls have instead been seen as a burden because they have to be protected and provided with large sums of money for wedding dowries (even though this practice is, at least in theory, also against the law). This "modern" cultural preference for sons (who bring in income in the form of dowries) has begun to seriously skew sex ratios in the country radically.
In states known for relative economic prosperity and relatively high literacy rates, the male female ratio is, paradoxically, acquiring frightening proportions. Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Gujarat & Rajasthan lead in declining female to male sex ratios:
Figures: Females per 1000 males (2001-02)
1. Punjab - 793
2. Haryana - 820
3. Chandigarh - 845
4. Gujarat - 878
5. Delhi - 865
The natural birth ratio of girls should be slightly higher in favor of girls. This ratio has clearly been turned upside down in most parts of India.
The Arya Samaj, a world wide proactive spiritual movement started in 1875 by a great reformer, Swami Dayanand, which is dedicated towards the establishment of an egalitarian society free from all vices based on the Universal Vedic Values of Equality Truth, Love, Compassion & Justice has vowed to combat this evil of female foeticide. As Swami Agnivesh, President of the Arya Samaj puts it: What could be better way of setting out to eradicate the practice of foetal infanticide other than to organize, mobilize and galvanise all sections of society against this scourge?
We are inviting all lovers of humanity and all activists for Gender Justice to lend their support and voice of solidarity in support of defenseless girls still in their mothers' wombs.
This social mobilization will take the form of a historic March of the Million (inspired by Mahatma Gandhi) from Tankara - the birthplace of Swami Dayanand in Gujarat - very near where Mahatama Gandhi was born - on November 1, 05 and crisscrossing North & Central Gujarat arrive in Ahmedabad ; from there -. about 100 select band of socio - spiritual activists will enter Rajasthan and reach Udaipur, before heading on to Jaipur, the Capital city of Rajasthan.
The next leg of the march will be in Delhi. Thereafter, the march will continue in in Haryana in places like Rohtak, Jind, Kaithal, Kurukshetra, Yamunagar, and Ambala, as well as. Chandigarh .
The final leg of the march will be in Punjab - Ludhiana, Jalandhar (including Kartarpur, birthplace of Swami Dayanand's preceptor Swami Virjanand) and onto Amritsar at Jallianwala Bagh .
This march will be joined in by hundreds & thousands of young people at every major public functions. This will be in the form of people converging from all sides by foot march or by Bicycles or by other vehicles. In this way, though the main route from Tankara - Gujarat to Amritsar - Punjab will be covered by around 100 activists by bus & car escorted by about 20 motor cyclists, the tributaries joining and dispersing will allow about a million people to express their active solidarity in one or the other form.
We invite you to lend your support to this historic event.
- Swami Agnivesh
President
World Council of Arya Samaj
(Sarvadeshik Arya Pratinidhi Sabha)
3/5 Asaf Ali Road
New Delhi - 110 002
Ph: +91-11-23363221 , 23367943
Fax: +91-11-23367946
Em: agnivesh70@gmail.com
www.swamiagnivesh.com
Indian Organizations Struggle to Remedy Frightening Sex Ratio - by Rahul Kumar
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