Female infanticide in India

[Nehru]

Comrades,

Female infanticide is common in India, especially in the North. Some people say it's because of economic conditions, while others say it's because of remnants of feudalism (or why would the rich also do that?). And still others say it's simply hatred for the girl child, and nothing more.

What's the most reasonable conclusion we can come to? No doubt economic conditions play a role but I am wondering whether a feudalistic culture also influences our response to a certain situation.

Thanks,
Guna

[Jimmie Higgins]

Comrades,

Female infanticide is common in India, especially in the North. Some people say it's because of economic conditions, while others say it's because of remnants of feudalism (or why would the rich also do that?). And still others say it's simply hatred for the girl child, and nothing more.

What's the most reasonable conclusion we can come to? No doubt economic conditions play a role but I am wondering whether a feudalistic culture also influences our response to a certain situation.

Thanks,
GunaI don't know much about this specific phenomena, but for poor rural people, there is probably a very practical origin: inability to control reproduction and the need for male labor. If male urban labor is needed, rural people might favor boys because that would mean potentially more remittances if the kid, when older, can get a job in a city or another country. This is how it is in other countries with high rates of modern infanticide.

In feudal Europe there was a lot of infanticide and I think I remember reading something about specific wells that people would dump unwanted children into. So I think the economic reasons under feudalism were most likely a need for male children for farm labor - if female children got married and then moved to the land of another family then that child is no longer useful.

In modern cases in countries that have just recently gone from feudalism to capitalism or in countries where there is still a lot of mixture of feudal and modern culture (like in rural China and India probably) then it is probably older traditions (male children needed for farm labor) combined with new uses (male children as migrant workers to help support the family). Cultural practices are like that because things that may have had a specific practical (if fucked up like killing unwanted children) use become generalized and then become practiced separate from the original reason. People don't eat pork for example because at one point it would have made you sick, but now it's become common practice in many places - not eating beef originally came from local rulers in India who wanted to make sure that they could continue to produce cow milk even though people may have been starving. Infanticide is obviously much more extreme, but favoring male children may have developed in a similar way which would explain why it might be practiced by some people who do not necessarily need extra male labor.

[Queercommie Girl]

Fundamentally it is to be blamed on socio-economic relations, rather than culture. Who is to say that a hypothetically "socialist India" would no longer be culturally Indian but would instead be Westernised? We do not want non-Western cultures to Westernise at all, we only want all nations to embrace genuine socialism. There is nothing in non-Western cultures that is fundamentally and intrinsically incompatible with socialism.

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

Fundamentally it is to be blamed on socio-economic relations, rather than culture. Who is to say that a hypothetically "socialist India" would no longer be culturally Indian but would instead be Westernised? We do not want non-Western cultures to Westernise at all, we only want all nations to embrace genuine socialism. There is nothing in non-Western cultures that is fundamentally and intrinsically incompatible with socialism.

1.) 'Fundamentally it is to be blamed on socio-economic relations, rather than culture. '
Which remaining social backwardness is to be blamed upon in this situation.
2.) 'Who is to say that a hypothetically "socialist India" would no longer be culturally Indian but would instead be Westernised?'
As 'Socialist India' would have to be built from within Indian Society and it would have to build its own form of a People's Culture in order to replace the formerly Bourgeois Culture and put forward a Proletarian centered culture in order to be truly 'Socialist' in a cultural sense, which at its own steps upon potential Westernization as not a possibility.
3.) 'We do not want non-Western cultures to Westernise at all, we only want all nations to embrace genuine socialism.'
Indeed, each culture is to put forward a new culture from the previous culture, based out of the conditions within their own distinct cultural background in order to ensure that a Proletarian Culture is to truly relate to the in this case, Indian Proletariat.

[t.shonku]

Comrades,

Female infanticide is common in India, especially in the North. Some people say it's because of economic conditions, while others say it's because of remnants of feudalism (or why would the rich also do that?). And still others say it's simply hatred for the girl child, and nothing more.

What's the most reasonable conclusion we can come to? No doubt economic conditions play a role but I am wondering whether a feudalistic culture also influences our response to a certain situation.

Thanks,
Guna


Thanks friend for bringing out this burning issue !

A recent survey showed that upper class society in India have more tendency to kill female fetus ( if I am not mistaken it was published in Bartaman news paper)

Anyways I think it has more to do with feudalism and superstition !

People who kill female fetus are sick and they must be punished severely , they have no right to be parents.

I personally would love to have a daughter :) my sweet princess !!!!

[the Left™]

Female infanticide in India exists primarily because the Indian working class cannot afford the incredibly expensive dowry that accompanies the courtship of a grown female. In many cases, if an able bodied boy is not the fetus as its identified in health clinics throughout the Indian urban centers, backdoor abortion clinics are the next building over.

The practice of dowry abuse is rising in India. The most severe in “bride burning”, the burning of women whose dowries were not considered sufficient by their husband or in-laws. Most of these incidents are reported as accidental burns in the kitchen or are disguised as suicide. It is evident that there exist deep rooted prejudices against women in India. Cultural practices such as the payment of dowry tend to subordinate women in Indian society.

[t.shonku]

Female infanticide in India exists primarily because the Indian working class cannot afford the incredibly expensive dowry that accompanies the courtship of a grown female. In many cases, if an able bodied boy is not the fetus as its identified in health clinics throughout the Indian urban centers, backdoor abortion clinics are the next building over.


Sorry I beg to differ !

I think it has more to do with feudalism and superstition , because the rich business castes like Gujrati and Marwaris absolutely hate female child because they think that a daughter is a result of bad karmas in past life and daughter would destroy business.

[the Left™]

Sorry I beg to differ !

I think it has more to do with feudalism and superstition , because the rich business castes like Gujrati and Marwaris absolutely hate female child because they think that a daughter is a result of bad karmas in past life and daughter would destroy business.


You are free to differ, but dowry is absolutely a main reason why female infanticide is so prevalent

[t.shonku]

You are free to differ, but dowry is absolutely a main reason why female infanticide is so prevalent


I never said that dowry is not the reason ! off course dowry is a reason.

But the feudal set up should also be blamed,in this case I think it is the chief reason.Its a summation of dowry+superstition+FEUDAL SYSTEM

And please don't blame the poor peoples for killing female fetus , they still have a heart , male to female ratio amongst poorer castes like Dalits and Tribals is far better balanced than business classes like Marwaris , Marwaris are very cruel towards female child they think it's a curse of god

[jake williams]

Fundamentally it is to be blamed on socio-economic relations, rather than culture. Who is to say that a hypothetically "socialist India" would no longer be culturally Indian but would instead be Westernised? We do not want non-Western cultures to Westernise at all, we only want all nations to embrace genuine socialism. There is nothing in non-Western cultures that is fundamentally and intrinsically incompatible with socialism.
I think sexism as a cultural phenomenon has social-material origins, but it's still a cultural phenomenon. And as a cultural phenomenon, it can lag a bit behind developments in economic relations. As has been pointed out, some groups of wealthier Indians, who basically live lives almost identical to Western capitalists, disproportionately sex-select even compared to most of the poorer peasantry.

It also might be worth pointing out that the poor sex-select using infanticide because they don't generally have access to safe abortion, or they'd do that instead. And I hate to say it, but the right to sex-selective abortion is a corollary to the right to abortion, unless you think it's possible to prevent parents from finding out about the sex of a fetus - which is illegal in India anyway.

I do think major social gender imbalances are a problem for the people who have to live in such a society, and not just a symptom of a sexist society. I also think that ameliorating the material conditions that promote it will ultimately stop it, because I don't think societies are naturally sexist, but that will take some time. In the medium term, tax subsidies for having daughters probably wouldn't be a horrible idea, nor would expropriating the wealth of the rich.


Who is to say that a hypothetically "socialist India" would no longer be culturally Indian but would instead be Westernised? We do not want non-Western cultures to Westernise at all, we only want all nations to embrace genuine socialism. There is nothing in non-Western cultures that is fundamentally and intrinsically incompatible with socialism.
Cultures which are the products of developed capitalist relations are almost universally less sexist than cultures which are the products of feudal or even semi-feudal relations, which much of India largely still is. In this sense gender relations in a socialist India would look more Western than Indian, if you think socialism entails the eventual abolition of sexism, not because of anything intrinsic about "Western culture" but because productive relations in Western societies are more developed than they are in India. Feudal Europe might well have been much more misogynistic than feudal India.