Census of India 2011: Bias against girl child despite awareness in Gujarat, Maharashtra & Bengal

AHMEDABAD/ MUMBAI/ KOLKATA: Jayshree Panchal of Ahmedabad and Kanta Hewale, a Mumbai housewife, live thousands of kilometres apart but have the same reasons to be depressed and worried. Both have given birth to baby girls. Both are worried sick over how their families would receive their baby girls.

Outside Jayshree’s hospital ward her relatives spoke in hushed tones the day she gave birth. In 2009, Jayshree had a miscarriage and this time around, the couple was hoping to take home a baby boy.

Kanta is a construction worker’s wife. Her baby is eight days old. Sitting on her JJ hospital bed and feeding the little one, she said: ‘‘ Girls are not bad but it’s important to have a son.’’

Blame it on sex determination and sex-selected abortions, but there are only 838 girls in the 0-6 age group for every 1,000 boys in the same age group in Mumbai. Similarly, despite awareness drives and campaigns the bias against the girl child remains just as deep-rooted in Gujarat. And both in Gujarat and Maharashtra, the educated and well off are just as responsible for the state’s skewed sex ratio as others.

The problems are pretty similar in states such as West Bengal. Reports from Kolkata neighbourhoods say feticides are common to the congested older parts of city as upmarket South Kolkata.