What Causes Infanticide in India Become an “Epidemic”

What causes infanticide in India become an “epidemic.”

Infanticide is the intentional act of killing a newborn. According to Dube, Dube, and Bhatnagar (2016), postcolonial India had witnessed selective killings of female fetuses despite increasing concerns from Indian women-led campaigns against the act. India is a patriarchal community with the number of males exceeding that of females. Infanticide increased in the 20^th century as technological innovations such as ultrasound were introduced in India in the 1970s to determine the sex of unborn babies (Caldwell & Caldwell, 2005). Reviews show that politics and the social context influenced the nature of the population and actions were undertaken in the modern-day India (Brown, 1984; Williams, 2014). The aim of this paper is to propose a research on what causes infanticide in India to become an epidemic.

During the emergency period that began on June 1975 to March 1977, India experienced a political power that was focused on poverty eradication in the country. Nevertheless, the politicians advocated for family planning programs that saw many people become sterilized to facilitate economic development (Williams, 2014). During this period, political power, a sex determination test was introduced in the country as a means of identifying defects in a sample population. Subsequently, it offered an opportunity for sex-selective abortions (Dube et al., 2016). From this perspective, females who experience sex determination tests and then perform abortions on knowing the sex of the baby contribute to the gender inequality already presented by the patriarchy. Moreover, women do not act independently, but are sometimes influenced by the prevailing policies such as those employed during the emergency. Additionally, they are victims of a dominant social ideology that has a higher preference for male children. According to Dube et al. (2016), the increase of killing of female fetuses can be associated with the slighting and discriminatory practices, including the uneven sharing of food that leads to nutritional deficiencies. Also, there is inadequate access to health care, family resources, and basic survival requirements. The cultural setting has been identified as a virtually undetectable infanticide that continues to haunt the girl-child (Dube et al., 2016).

Dube et al. (2016) reviews that Indian women’s organizations were the first parties to condemn the use of modern reproductive technologies for feticide as well as discriminative breeding and raising of male fetuses. The Association for Women’ s Studies found that there are conflicting accounts on the mortality rates of fetuses suggesting that the crime exists but at undetectable rates. Furthermore, the India Women Welfare Foundations (2009) states that there has been little effect of the initiatives taken by the government and non-government organizations including the media to change the community perception about the females.

Although India is among the progressively developing nations in the 21^st century, the India Women Welfare Foundations (2009) hint at that citizens are living with an illusion that they are at par with other developed nations. Arguably, despite the technological development, some of the innovations have been used to facilitate infanticide by allowing access to even the remote villages through motorcycles. Nevertheless, Williams (2014) notes that family planning is critical for the survival of the nation, but the adequate social change should be implemented to compact infanticide. Furthermore, for more than a decade, there has been legal provisions banning sex-selective abortions, yet the number of extermination of female fetuses’ remains high, suggesting that there is a need for change in the social and cultural activities that promote infanticide ( India Women Welfare Foundations, 2009).