Opinion The district of goddesses

And then,from the depths of our much-maligned officialdom,a team emerged that decided to tackle the problem. The district collector’s office is otherwise associated with the routine persecution of citizens. Hapless persons hang around all day trying to get their “agricultural” lands reclassified or trying to get somebody (anybody?) to hear complaints about some egregious error in the land records of the panchayat,the tehsildar,the ominous-sounding sub-registrar (what does he or she register and who is he/she “subbing” for?) and other functionaries of an dysfunctional state.

Laxmikant Deshmukh,the collector of Kolhapur (and the motivated team in his office,too, is not to be underestimated) set about proving that all is not lost in the system. In fact,because it is backed by the law of the land,it is the system,as embodied by the office of the district collector,which can effectively move towards hard-to-implement solutions for seemingly intractable social problems.

Their plan of action was simplicity itself,and did not require inputs from the imperial World Bank or imperious McKinsey consultants. They would monitor all sonography tests in the district’s clinics. Their personnel would then call on the prospective parents and work on persuading them to avoid abortions merely because they know that they were headed for a girl child. They used a simple non-intrusive technology,known as the “silent observer”,that effectively picked up under-reporting of pre-natal tests in clinics. Slowly,but surely,this outreach began to have an impact. By 2010,the sex ratio had moved from 839 to 876. Not outstanding,but directionally very significant.

Among other things,this proved human problems could be met with human solutions. Efforts went beyond monitoring and advice to active intervention: economic support to pregnant women and to mothers of baby girls. Deshmukh and his colleagues were being feted; among others,they received a national social innovation honours award from the Nasscom Foundation. For once,highly publicised civil society did recognise the constructive work done by idealistic civil servants,otherwise only showered with brickbats.

I am sure there are still unscrupulous doctors and cruel parents who continue with older practices. Many clinics might have opened up in neighbouring districts. Yet the fact remains that this project has been undertaken within the system,by the system and has begun to show incipient signs of success. Other state districts (Nanded,Sangli,Jalgaon,Buldana) are trying to replicate the experiment. Other states (Karnataka,HP,Punjab and Gujarat) are planning to do the same.

To be perfectly honest,I have had some quasi-libertarian concerns as to whether the state using such technologies to monitor private actions is an intrusion into the private lives of citizens. However,the crime of female foeticide is so horrifying that I am convinced such action is justified. After all,if I kept slaves in my plantation,could I plead privacy rights and not allow intrusion on my lands to free them? Even the most principled libertarian would concede that privacy arguments cannot prevail over the immediate needs of human freedom.

We need more Deshmukhs; we need more teams of dedicated state employees; and we need to recognise,praise and reward them. Therein lies a measure of hope for our fractured land.

The writer is chairman of the Nasscom Foundation