Female feticide in Mandya

Here is a disgusting tidbit of information. A recent census revealed that the ratio of girls born in Mandya district has reduced in recent times. Also, in Mandya, there has been an increase in the  number of 'scanning centres' which determine the sex of the unborn fetus.
Exploring the reasons for this, it was discovered that it is linked to a decision made by the Indian government a few years ago. The Indian government decided that daughters are entitled to inherit property too.

Mandya is a district of Karnataka with rich, river water-fed fertile agricultural land growing sugarcane, rice, etc. Traditionally the daughters of farmers were married off  and their wedding was paid for by the bride's father. The bride received jewels and dowry and that was her 'share of the property'. Now that the government has tried to help women of India by ruling that they too should be given a share in the property of the family, the agriculturists have started aborting their own daughters even before they are born!

I do understand the problems of sharing agricultural property with an outsider i.e. a 'son-in-law' but aborting the girls even before they are born is shameful. 

These agriculturists are definitely 'better off' and I assume more 'educated' than the Lambani tribe in Karnataka. Yet, even the Lambani tribe folks, to whom sons are important, don't abort the first two children whether they are boys or girls. It is only if they have two girls the first two times that they may check the gender during the third pregnancy. 

What is appalling is that every single tool meant to be used for good is twisted in India and used for evil. Scanning of the unborn fetus was meant to detect problems in the unborn fetus. Instead it's used in India to determine the gender of the fetus and abort female fetus, even if it's healthy.
 I always believed that education will lead to positive values and greater ethics, morals, decency. Instead, the reduction of females being born is seen more in the educated than the illiterate. Of course, this more even sex ratio among the illiterates may be, because the illiterate are also poorer and cannot afford the cost of screening the fetus for gender or afford the cost of abortions.
A census done in Bombay showed that the number of females born in affluent areas of Bombay were much lesser than the number of girls born in the poorer sections of Bombay. This indicates that higher socio-economic status does not necessarily bode well for females.
I thought that the government ruling that daughters should inherit property would help women. Even this 'women-friendly' decision is leading to abortion of female fetus!

India is indeed incredible! Incredibly sick!


NOTE: I have written about Mandya in this article; However, this is not a problem only in Mandya. Female feticide is a major problem  in several other parts of India and in many other countries too such as China.