A paddy grain in the mouth of an infant

Administrators have generally tended to dodge the issue when confronted with it. This is why the example of what was achieved at Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu, needs reiteration. Not only is Dharmapuri one of Tamil Nadu’s poorest districts — while Chennai’s capita annual income of Rs 18,682, Dharmapuri’s is only Rs 8,475 — it had the highest prevalence levels of female infanticide. The burden of dowry and fear of fragmentation of land holdings were some reasons for this trend, according to local opinion. Yet political will and some dedicated work has wrought significant changes here. In 1996, there were an estimated 1,081 incidents of female infanticide in Dharmapuri. In 1999, the figure came down to 659.

How did Dharmapuri change course? The experience has been extensively documented but, all the same, it was interesting to meet up with Sheela Rani Chunkath, one of the key figures behind the turnaround, at a recent symposium in Chennai. Chunkath, presently the chairperson of the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, was commissioner, Mother and Child Health and Welfare for the Tamil Nadu government, and project director of the Danida Tamil Nadu Area Health Care Project in the mid-1990s.

As a health administrator, the first thing that struck Chunkath about Dharmapuri was the obvious link between the high infant mortality in the region and female mortality. “We asked ourselves how we could use healthcare initiatives to address the issue of female infanticide,” says Chunkath, who along with economist Dr Venkatesh Athreya started studying the problem around 1995. The challenge really was to enthuse both the state government and the local community to change Dharmapuri’s grim reality.

In 1995, an awareness programme in the district was put into action, with considerable help from young social activists. “Through kalaipayanam (street theatre) we hoped to take our message to the community. Young activists, trained in theatre, initially put together a production that probed the root cause for female infanticide, without talking down to the community, or accusing them of such a crime,” recalls Chunkath. The idea was to interact with the community and get them to explain why female infanticide takes place. Simultaneously, attempts were made to break social stereotypes by portraying girls lighting funeral pyres, and so on. “Never did we directly say, Don’t commit infanticide’. Instead we broadened the discussion by raising questions like, who should use contraception?’ or why can’t a father live in his daughter’s house?”’ Chunkath explains.

This was followed by a 40-day campaign in 1997, when a whole block at a time was saturated with programmes built on the theme.“Significantly,” says Chunkath, “we received an excellent response from the local people, who even provided food and other facilities for our troupes. By this time, these villages had already become a part of our health network, linked through primary health centres. Something significant happened in the process — a social delegitimising of female infanticide took place. Slowly, other departments like social welfare and education came in.”

Today, Chunkath regards the latest figures of infanticides in Dharmapuri with some satisfaction. “The reduction is pretty marked, especially when you compare it with neighbouring Salem. Here no intervention has been made and the numbers of female infanticides are only growing,” she says. “Two cardinal rules were followed in the campaign: We never put pressure on the mother but on the father. And we kept the police out of it.”

But how sustainable is the Dharmapuri model and can it be replicated elsewhere? Dr Venkatesh Athreya is cautious in his reply. “One thing that emerges is that the state has an extremely important proactive role to play. Remember, street theatre was used not only to inform and communicate, but as a mobilising strategy. But after that, it was for the government to ensure that other long-term inputs, like education and health, were made available,” he says.

He also points out that the state must adopt a community-based approach in such initiatives and not look at it as an easy way to gain quick popularity. “Look what happened to the famous Cradle Babies Scheme’ that the Jayalalitha government began in 1992. It was an utter failure,” he remarks.

Says Sabu M.George, who has for the last 15 years been working on child survival issues, “The biggest problem lies in keeping these prevention programmes going — it takes at least a couple of years to win the trust of the local community and without trust the subject cannot even be broached.”

George, one of the petitioners in a writ petition to the Supreme Court on female foeticide (see box), believes that female infanticide is practised over a far wider area than has been acknowledged. “I know for a fact that there are incidents of female infanticide taking place in pockets of Andhra and northern Karnataka,” he says. “If you look at the traditional methods of killing a child in this entire region, they are identical — whether it is by feeding the baby milk in which paddy is soaked, or through the poisonous sap of the calotropis plant.”

This traditional knowledge, according to George, could only have been acquired over the generations. In fact, there is a saying in places like Vellore, that to keep a crying child quiet put some paddy into its throat.

Stopping a baby’s cry is just a heartbeat away from snuffing out the life of a baby girl, it seems.

What use is this law?
Female foeticide, by its very nature, spreads much faster than infanticide. The law passed to check it — the Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act — has been around since 1994 but to little avail. Recently, the ministry of Health and Family Welfare even clarified that the Act applies only to pregnant women and does not cover “pre-conceptual sex planning”. However, health activists are quick to point out that the word “pre-natal” in the Act necessarily includes all pre-pregnancy procedures.

Two health organisations, the Mumbai-based CEHAT and the Pune-based Masum, have now filed a writ petition before the Supreme Court on the issue. Says Sabu M. George, one of the petitioners, “There are two aspects of our petition. One, we want a declaration that all pre-natal (including pre-pregnancy) sex selection falls within the purview of the Act. Two, we want directions issued to the Union government and the various state governments to set up appropriate bodies at various district levels to monitor the working of the Act as laid down by it.”

According to George, after a great deal of goading, the Tamil Nadu government has now begun registering ultra-sound machines — some 300 had been registered up to April this year. “This is just a start. We are trying to mount similar pressure on Karnataka. The first step is to form district level authorities, that meet at least once in six months,” he says.