Department of Sociology, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, India
Gender discrimination against women is rooted in Hindu Philosophy since ancient times. It is based on the assumption that only a son is entitled to ignite the funeral pyre of his parents and no one else. And girls are a liability for their parents and a curse from the heavens. Naturally, therefore, a girl child receives step-motherly treatment even from own parents, and annihilation of female babies remained the custom in India since ages. With the introduction of ultrasound scanning, the infanticide of new born female babies has been replaced by foeticide of unborn female babies. Currently female foeticide is one of the worst forms of violence perpetrated against women. Even since girls have become targets of attack, their proportion in population is steadily declining in India as also in most of the Asian countries, as reflected in their child sex ratio. This ratio which is lower in India than in China, Pakistan and Bangladesh, is progressively declining over the decades as reflected in census estimations. The solution to the problem lies in reversing this alarming demographic trend by removing the gender bias from the minds of people in general; by extending fair treatment to girl children before and after their marriage and by elevating the status of women folk in the Indian society. This could be achieved through appropriate medical, social and legal measures.
