Even as the country’s population growth rate decreased in the previous decade, the Census for 2011 paints a grim future for the women, with gender imbalance among children showing the worst fall since the Independence.
The sex ratio — the number of females per 1,000 males — among children up to six years fell by 13 points to 914, compared to 927 in the previous census 10 years ago. This is not all. The decline in the child sex ratio has been widespread with the eastern states and the Kashmir valley matching the northern states in the reduced number of girl children. The biggest drop has been in Jammu and Kashmir where the sex ratio came down by 82 points from 941 in 2001 to 859 in 2011.
Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, who belongs to the state, is supposed to implement the Pre-Natal Sex Determination (PNDT) Act, which requires action against doctors and sex selection centres encouraging female foeticide.
In Rajasthan, there has been a drop of 26 points from 909 in 2001 to 883 in 2011. Andhra Pradesh witnessed a 18-point drop from 961 to 943, while in West Bengal, the ratio dropped by 10 points to 950.(Click here for table)
Haryana and Punjab, after decades of failure in checking a drastically falling sex ratio, have shown some improvement. The ratio in Haryana has slightly improved from 819 to 830 in the last 10 years, while and in Punjab it has improved from 798 to 846. There is a marginal improvement in Tamil Nadu (from 942 to 946) and a marginal decline in Kerala from 960 to 959.
Activists and social scientists have expressed alarm at the falling trend of girl population, saying it has not been reversed.
Ritu Priya Mehrotra, professor, Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, said the news was alarming.
She also noted that while the world counts the number of men in a population of 1,000 to determine the sex ratio, India looks at the number of women per 1,000 as if it assumes the numbers to be less.
Sabu George, a public health activist who has been campaigning for the rights of the unborn girl child for the last two decades and whose plea in the Supreme Court was instrumental in changes to the PNDT Act, said the result was not surprising. “The fall has been bad all over with the eastern states like West Bengal, Bihar and Orissa now matching steps with the north. The drop in the Valley has been steep, too. All this is primarily because there is a decline in the number of children born and also because of female foeticide,” George says.
All the states are showing this trend because no state is taking any action to stop female foeticide, he says. Where some action has been taken there has been improvement, he points out, citing Haryana and Punjab as examples.
George says the 10-point drop in West Bengal is as good as a 30-point drop in Haryana, because the eastern states have been culturally most protective of girls. If they start eliminating girls then there is a task at hand, he says.
