You forgot casteism, untouchability, devadasism, not to mention sati and human sacrifice (banned by the brits but still occasionally practiced).

I don’t see how you can discuss sex selective abortions among desis without considering the religion of the people who are doing it. This is a clear failure of the hindu and sikh religious authorities.

Similarly you can’t discuss modern day terrorism without considering the religion of the jihadis. How stupid would that be?

How about making block-grants of some size from Delhi related to sex-ratio? That is, reward progress on reducing female infanticide/abortion with $$ from the center.

a) I’m not prone to believing it’s biology, I just want to note that biology shouldn’t be ignored, especially when it’s obviously people looooove their cultural triumphalism, regardless of the direction. I was very shocked by the Chinese Hepatitis study.

b) as a very religious Hindu, I was raised being extremeley pro-life, and it was only after some deep reflection about the true limits of the separation of church and state did I become politically pro-choice. When it comes to myself, I’m still pro-life, I’m just not willing to argue for legally imposing that thinking on someone else. The opening chapter of the Bhagavad Gita has Arjun citing ‘the killing of unborn children’ as one of the signs of the social morals gone all to hell.

Shockingly, most people are not necessarily representative of the full implications of their identified religion, whether Abrahamic or not. So why don’t we stop the cultural triumphalism altogether and focus on evidence-based ways of stopping this problem. Anyone have one of those at hand?

I’ve had family members killed by what you call “oogeey-boogey Mozlems” but I don’t feel the need to be as crass as you on a South Asian forum. Keep it classy, fajita.

“Shilpa, you’re rabidly paranoid. Look at the numbers. Muslims and Christians and Buddhists are not aborting their girls. Hindus and Sikhs are.”

Facts, sir/m’am/it, would go along way to shifting this from an all you can eat hatefest to educated discussion. Either post links to back up your statements (something you had trouble with above) or call it a night…

Not to be too navel-gazing, b/c obviously the major problem to be solved is this female infanticide, but as a second-order question, does anyone have any advice (or links to discussions) as to how an ABD might broach this topic in India? I spend 7-8 weeks in India every summer, but I find Indian politics (both in terms of elections, gender, etc.) so toxic that it difficult to connect with people there on these sorts of issues. Obviously there are “social service” groups, but they are often linked to political org’s with rather (to me) odious connections (Hindutva, Islamism, Communism . . . ). Maybe my nana is right–I should spend more time on US politics–but then why are my parents shipping me off to India every summer?!

Yours in ABCD’dom, Shilpa

This is why I stay very far away from Sepia…

Ridiculous comments about harems and burkhas are ridiculous.What is the counterpart to that: That adult Hindu women are prancing around free and liberated in mini-skirts? No, they wake up at dawn and slave over a mud stove until night. Physical abuse at the hands of their mother-in-laws are common. It is a life of slavery. Life in India is not a Bollywood movie.

Intellectual conversation about trends depicted clearly on a map and argued and talked about endlessly by people like Nick Kristoff and Amartya Sen for decades is not your forte.

“I am guessing that Hinduism — like Chinese-enforced securalism aka communism — does not have any directives against abortion.”

“Anyway, Kerala and Bihar regions disparity from the rest of India is not surprising. Strong Christian presence in Kerala, Muslim in Bihar. Abrahamic religions are pretty blunt about abortion.”

It is the silly religious character anointed on this topic by laloo here:

Laloo | April 15, 2011 7:41 PM | Reply

Why don’t Hindus and Sikhs fear the karmic consequences of killing female fetuses and infants, like Muslims fear Hell if they do?

that led her down that track. You proceeded to heap on as you did in your most recent comment. You can talk about bride burning and dowry all you want, but all are banned by law (the former virtually non-existent and the latter in fact resulting in many wrongfully jailed men). Curiously, practices such as female (or male for that matter) circumcision and stoning along with death for adultery are absent—are there strong abrahamic injunctions against these too?

The point is Shilpa was reacting to the religious character injected into the discussion. So either you hate hindus, or you’re just defending those who do? Do you see the problem with your line of reasoning?

Let’s get back to the topic, set aside these religious matters (on either part) aside, and focus on the key issue of ending female infanticide. It has serious socio-economic and national ramifications that all Indians must be mindful of and tackle. No society has celebrated the mother like Indian (and for that matter hindu) society–it is time people demonstrate this respect to future mothers along with current ones.