INDIANS AND THEIR RAJA BETA SYNDROME
Gender inequality is present all over the world; however, the gratuitous preference for a male child over a female is deeply entrenched in India.
India is a culturally and religiously rich country as well as the originator of some of the world’s oldest religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Indians worship several female deities like Goddess Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswati to name a few. Every deity symbolizes unique characteristics; for instance, Goddess Durga symbolizes divine power or Shakti to protect mankind from evil and misery; the Goddess of wealth and prosperity is Goddess Lakshmi and Goddess Saraswati is the symbol of knowledge. However, the contradictory element lies in the mindset of some Indians who in spite of worshipping the divine female deities show an aversion towards the women in their own lives.
As per the national statistics, the national average is 917 girls for 1,000 males. In some villages, this ratio is skewed to as much as 500 females for 1000 males. To add to it, there are around 70 villages where girls have not been born in the past few years. In India, preference for sons undermines the desire for smaller families, slowing the decline in population growth. In spite of a solid family arranging program and a developing craving for more modest families, women in India usually end up having more kids than they might want due to a longstanding inclination for children. Despite several campaigns and famous slogans over the years, the fancy for sons stays sturdy amongst Indian mindsets. Many of them maintain to peer boys as a funding and girls as a liability.
The common wisdom that follows is that the preference for sons is motivated by economic, religious, social, and emotional desires and norms that favor males and make females less desirable: parents desire sons, but not daughters. They believe that having sons would in turn provide them with financial and emotional care, especially during their old age. The notion further goes on to believe that daughters are a source of financial burden in context to ‘dowries’ when it comes to family wealth and property. The conviction of sons continuing the family lineage while daughters getting married away to another household, sons performing important religious roles and defending or exercising the family’s power while daughters having to be defended and protected, creates a perceived burden on the household and only adds up to the list. The urge to educate the female child is very low in a lot of places in India as according to them, the only duty of a girl child is to get married as early as possible and look after the family. There are varied reasons for restricting the progress of a girl child but most of the reasons lie in certain primitive religious beliefs of mankind as well as Indian societal pressures.
On the other hand, the Indian patriarchal society’s tradition brings in the practice of ‘Dowry’ which is supposed to be banned since 1961; however, it is still very prevalent across the country. When the girl gets married, no matter if the girl is educated or uneducated, financially stable or dependent, dowry is still openly offered as money or indirectly offered in the form of “gifts” such as land, house, cars, and other luxury items. Many families deeply regret and curse themselves on the birth of a girl child for they are anxious about the accumulation of wealth for dowry. In some of the cases, dowry is not the end as the demand from the bride’s in law’s family would continue and at times brides are tortured to death for want of additional dowry.
Well, what is curious is why the spineless grooms who are well educated in many cases would accept the dowry.
Alongside, spiritual/religious factors and the notion of perceiving women as a ‘parayadhan’, further contribute to making society think of women as an added responsibility and burden.
The only suggestion one can think of is to educate girls so that they can stand up for themselves and not fall prey to the dowry system. Education not only empowers a girl but also makes her economically independent and provides a sense of confidence about herself. Forming out a strong base amongst young minds is one of our only weapons in this fight against gender inequality.
