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The Rediff Special/ Shobha Warrier

'Again a girl! Are you not ashamed of yourself?'

Malli, a young woman in her early twenties, lay on a dilapidated cot, exhausted and drained of all energy. She was not conscious of the faint wail of her new born baby, nor sensitive to the irate and displeased voices of her mother-in-law and the group of women anxiously standing around her. She just wanted to sleep. And she slept. For a very long time.

When she woke up she asked about her baby. "Again a girl! Are you not ashamed of yourself? The third time and still a girl." Malli did not open her mouth after that. Neither did she ask for her newborn. She knew what awaited her. She knew the eventuality. She knew her mother-in-law. She knew her husband, who had threatened to send her to her parental home if she delivered a baby girl again.

She knew someone may have already inserted a grain into her daughter's mouth, or fed her yerakkam pal, or may have drowned her in a bucket of water. She knew everything, but she remained silent. The hapless young mother of two unwanted girls wanted to sleep forever.

Malli's is not an isolated story. In Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh there are innumerable helpless women like Malli who have no right over their children, who have no right to even cry for their unwanted baby girls.

In 1986 India Today exposed how girl children were brutally killed in a small village called Usilampetti in the Madurai district of Tamil Nadu. Later, in 1992, another news report highlighted the practice in Salem district, nearly 200 kilometers from Usilampatti. After the first report, people attributed the practice of female infanticide to a particular caste group called Piramalai Kallars. But the second report revealed the cruel practice was followed not only by the same group, but by a different caste called Vellala Gounders of Salem. It took no time for people to come to a conclusion that female infanticide crossed borders and castes.

What is more appalling is that it is happening in a state quite advanced as far as the literacy rate, sex ratio, work force participation of women, birth rate and infant mortality are concerned.

Female infanticide crept into these areas only after Independence. According to one hypothesis, it began with the British arranging for the settlement of a group of nomadic tribes in that particular area. Even now old grandmothers in these villages tell tales of their marriages, where the word dowry was not mentioned at all. In fact, the groom's family had to pay the bride's price in those days and the marriage was conducted in the groom's house. Being nomadic tribes, they did not attach much sanctity to the institution of marriage. But once they settled down in an area, they began imitating the lives of those in the nearby areas. They started following customs like dowry, marriage in the house of the bride etc. It took no time for the families to view every girl as an unnecessary liability.

According to Dr Venkatesh Athreya, professor of economics, IIT, Madras, and an executive member of the National Literacy Mission Authority, "The gap between the aspirations of the people and what they can actually access through their resources" is another reason for such a horrendous act.

"Our tentative hypothesis is that when you want to limit your family size within the context of son preference and you are not using spacing methods in a significant way, in both sexes selective foeticide and infanticide become options. It is primarily because of patriarchy that the male does not want to adopt temporary methods of contraception. He does not even want male sterilisation. The female is carrying the whole load of family limitations. She bears female children until she gets a male child," says Dr Athreya.

Patriarchy is followed in almost all parts of India. On why the practice of female infanticide is confined to certain pockets alone, the professor said there was a strong tendency among these groups to emulate the dominant caste group of that area -- who invariably paid hefty dowries and conducted marriages in an ostentatious way. If it was affordable, foeticide was carried out. But for the poor, female infanticide is an 'easy' option.

The Tamil Nadu government decided to fight the brutal practice in several ways.

The Indian Council for Child Welfare was one of the first organisations to start its activities in Usilampetti. In 1987, the ICCW launched a Mother and Child welfare project in 10 villages. It now operates in all the 300 villages in Usilampetti. In 1998, the ICCW, Tamil Nadu, won the C Henry Kemps award for its work in Usilampetti.

The statistics shows a sharp decrease in the occurrence of female infanticide in Usilampetti, from 200 in 1991-92 to 22 in 1997-98.

Year	No of Female infanticide
1991-92	200
1992-93	190
1993-94	181
1994-95	78
1995-96	32
1996-97	24
1997-98	22

The ICCW's success in Usilampetti is mainly because it never told the villagers that it was there to prevent or end female infanticide. The Council's Mother and Child project first established creches for working women, so its workers could get access to the villagers. Then, the ICCW recruited local women to work for it.

After six months the ICCW broached the subject of female infanticide to the villagers. As expected, the reaction was aggressive. Slowly, the volunteers started monitoring their villages. They kept a constant vigil on 'high risk' families, that is, families with one or two girls. The counselling of members of high-risk families -- father, mother, mother-in-law -- was done cautiously, discreetly.

"Initially they were not responsive at all. They behaved as if it was none of our business. We also started women development programmes where we divided women into self help groups where they are counseled on economic activities, self-employment, etc. We got them bank loans to start income generation activities. That gave us a big foothold in the villages," says Andal Damodaran, the honorary general secretary, ICCW.

'The girls take an oath that they will not be involved in female infanticide either directly or indirectly'

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