Infanticide

Despite the clear prohibitions against child-murder by all major religions, female infanticide has been for centuries a prominent and socially acceptable event, notably in one of the most populous countries in this world, India. Even today, the extent of the problem is measured in alarming proportions all around the globe: "at least 60 million females in Asia are missing and feared dead, victims of nothing more than their sex. Worldwide, research suggests, the number of missing females may top 100 million." The data is more astounding in India. According to the Census Report of 2001, for every 1000 males the number of females has decreased to 927 in 2001 from 945 in 1991 and continues to decrease. It is clear that the burdensome costs involved with the raising of a girl, eventually providing her an appropriate marriage dowry, was the single most important factor in allowing social acceptance of the murder at birth in India. Nonetheless, in addition to the dowry system, the reasons for this increasing trend have also been attributed to the patriarchal society, poverty and the availability of sex-selective abortion.

India's population growth has been rapid, resulting from longer life expectancy and lower infant mortality in recent decades. Before independence, the high birth rates were balanced out by high death rates. In the half century since India gained independence from Great Britain in 1947, the average life expectancy has risen from just 39 years to 63 years, as high as that in Russia today. Conversely, after independence, the numbers changed but mortality rates dropped without a matching drop in birth rates. The perception of children became very different. The urban poor contributed most to the population and the reason for this is that they started viewing children as "sources of income rather an investment". They were seen as an old age security and the more the better. Furthermore, even though the mortality rate dropped, it was still relatively high compared to the survival rate. For this reason, fear of child death and contagious diseases caused the urban poor to contribute even more to the ever-increasing population. Part of the reason India is gaining on China as the most populous country in the world is that China has had very severe family planning laws, enforcing a one-child-per-family policy on most of the population. This policy was adopted because Chinese leaders anticipated that traditional large families would quickly overtax the country's resources. While India has tried many approaches to limiting family sizes, this democratically governed country has not enforced strict limits as China has. Family planning has proceeded chiefly through education and health programs, which are effective but which break down traditions slowly.

India is an extremely conservative and patriarchal society. In this society, women are considered inferior to men in all regards. In most families, the first child is usually welcomed- with joy if it a boy, with sad acceptance if it is a girl. Females are unwanted at birth, ill-treated as infants, and not educated in childhood. Be as it may, preference for the male child is mainly dominant as it is related to the age-old Hindu myth that states, "a person's soul is liberated only when a son performs the last death rites". (Dr. Madhumita Das, The Quest for a Male Child). In other words, the birth of a son assures the passage to heaven. The bias against females in India also relates to the fact that "Sons are called upon to provide the income; they are the ones who do most of the work in the fields. In this way, sons are looked to as a type of insurance. With this perspective, it becomes clearer that the high value given to males decreases the value given to females." (Marina Porras, Female Infanticide and Foeticide.)

Since prehistoric times, the supply of food has been a constant check on human population growth. One way to control the lethal effects of starvation was to restrict the number of children allowed to survive to adulthood. In Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man, Darwin believed that infanticide, "especially of female infants", was the most important restraint on the proliferation of early man. It seems like the Indian community as whole took Darwin's theory to heart. As mentioned before, India is one of the most populous countries on earth, having crossed the one billion landmark. Infanticide is rife among the poorer population, as it has at times been necessary for survival of the community at large. Though that might be the case, there are instances where it has been related to the general societal prejudice against females, which characterizes most male-dominated cultures. Males are looked upon to carry on the linage- hence they get priority over females any given day.

The major difference between the nature of infanticide in the twentieth century, when compared to the rest of recorded history, is due to the impact of one modern medical advancement: the widespread availability of safe, and legal, means of abortion. The ability to easily identify the gender of the fetus by means of ultrasound and so forth and terminate a pregnancy, thereby eliminating an unwanted child before it is born, has had a profound effect on the prevalence of infanticide. The majority of these murders have been associated with reasons of necessity - at least in the minds of the infanticide parent. To those who can afford it, it has been the easiest way to dispose of the "inconvenience". For those with little ability to abort an unwanted pregnancy safely, troubled parents - that accounts for the majority of the poor people - have had little choice but to wait until full-term delivery before killing the child.

The low status of Indian women makes them insignificant compared to the males in the marriage market. In lieu of this, Indian women are looked upon as a burden rather than a blessing to the family as the dowry system is still rampant in India. As said before, parents fear the birth of a girl as dowry has to be arranged at the time of marriage and the higher the social status of the family the more dowry is demanded. As a small dowry is believed to bring shame upon the family, it can very well cripple a family's finances to get their daughter married off. Female infanticide is often considered the only option for the poorer families who face this dilemma.

The methods for killing the baby infants were extremely primitive. Local nurses and midwives allegedly poisoned or gagged female babies immediately after birth. In addition, to prevent the infant from crying, concentrated salt water was fed at regular intervals to melt the tiny vocal cords. Sometimes the baby was smothered to death even before the mother regained consciousness.