A chilling picture

The broad indices of the 2011 census have been released: India is teeming with more people than ever before,there are more literate men and women than ever before. But the child sex ratio,which indicates the number of girls below the age of six per 1,000 boys,has declined horrifically: 914,the lowest since Independence.

The chilling statistic reveals a failure on the familial,societal and institutional levels. The child sex ratio has been falling since 1961,but over the past 10 years ever since the previous census showed that the figure drastically dropped from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001 there have been renewed efforts to give more teeth to the law against sex determination and sex selection and to spread awareness. They have clearly not delivered. The child sex ratio has fallen across the country except in a handful of states and Union territories: Himachal Pradesh,Gujarat,Tamil Nadu,Mizoram,the Andaman and Nicobar Islands,Punjab and Haryana. The last two have shown marginal improvement,but have the worst sex ratios in the country. It only goes to prove that we have failed in conveying the message that female infanticide/ foeticide is murder by another name. Diagnostic centres are mushrooming in towns and villages illegally offering sex-determination and pregnancy-termination services,unfettered and untroubled by the stringent provisions in the law.

There has to be a greater political will in reversing this trend. Legislation has not really helped,though the law signifies a social sanction. The child sex ratio is,in the end,a factor of the perceived gender inequality and to reverse the decline we need a change in attitudes. For starters,the provisional census figures should be read carefully for the indictment that they are.