By Manipadma Jena
Back in 2000, on a research assignment on population and women's issues I came across Sanjukta in Ghodasalia village in Nimapada block of Puri district of Orissa. Twenty-three years old, married at 14 and mother of four, she had aborted four contiguous pregnancies, all female until she finally had a son.

There was no ambiguity in her mind as to why she must have a son. “The mother of a son walks in the village with head held high. If a woman is sonless, she has no status, no voice. A son is a woman's ornament. He justifies a woman's womanhood.”

Other women in the village echoed her attitude – “to leave behind a son or two to the world, yes that gives meaning to our lives”. Another angle was added – “by having a son, a woman makes her near and dear ones happy. Otherwise, all are regretful. They will taunt her as worthless, a let-down”.

Rising literacy notwithstanding, the mindset has not changed. Couples may no longer worry that heaven will elude them because a son is not available to perform the last rites, but social conditioning of centuries makes a male child a ‘must' milestone. The compulsive must-ness of this desire defies all rationalisation.

But what do so many parents have against daughters? Let us look at their rationale for not wanting girls, to the extent that they will go a great length, distance and expense to not let them be born.

In today's social context, undeniably dowry is the main culprit. Growing in tandem with the global mall culture and materialism, dowry has taken on a truly destructive shape. From the day a daughter is born, parent these days do start worrying about her dowry; many a graft and corruption, to my mind, can be traced back to this pernicious worry.

I personally know of basically honest persons slowly turning to taking bribes after their daughters have reached a certain age. I also know of parents paying a pile to book donation seats in technical colleges in order to ramp up their daughters' eligibility in the marriage ‘market'. Mind you, a technical degree for better eligibility only, dowry is extra, no discounts there. Of course, by default this eligibility will also stand her in good stead if her marriage fails.

But does it really help? What percentage of parents in India will abandon a daughter once her in-laws dump her back? Very few, really. Representing the majority of lower-middle and lower class families this is what a mother reasoned with me: “Even if we educated daughters at par with sons, the employment situation is such that neither will get a job. A grown son may assist in the field or put up a grocery shop while a daughter can in no way supplement the family income. So why should we want daughters? On the other hand, we have to guard her from disrepute, affairs, even pregnancies, not to speak of serious eve-teasing. If she cannot get married, the whole community looks down on us and if all dowry demands are not met, the in-laws will simply dump her back on us.”

In short, a daughter is a costly affair today. A child – son or daughter – is a costly affair in fact. Just one more extra child (in search for a son) could well condemn parents to an entire life on a tight budget or one of debt. So it has to be two (in worst cases three and parents today are literally ashamed when they have four children) and one of this two has to be a son. It really boils down – for parents who cannot think of life without a male offspring – to no other option but go kill a daughter before it is too late for them.

But, killing daughters is not a new phenomenon. When an ultrasound technology was not available, there was no option but allow the baby to be born and if a girl, the infant then was smothered with a pillow, salt was packed into her mouth and the terribly dried throat killed her. Even today, mothers and fathers bury alive, unwanted newborns.

Even today a son is given the thick cream from the milk pot while the daughter helps the mother with household chores. Situations may be changing a little in urban areas but we must remember that this is only a small percentage of population.

Infanticide made way for foeticide; preconception sex determination technologies are already being fine-tuned, where couples can determine through simple tests in the privacy of their homes whether a son or daughter will be conceived at a particular biological-clock time. One technology will give way to another more sophisticated and fool-proof. The solution to checking murder of daughters is not so much in reining in these but in addressing the roots of the growing malaise – and that we all know lies in our current socio-economic dynamics.