Killer Districts

Dharmapuri and Salemtop the cradle baby charts. The region has a high female infanticide rate, finds PC VINOJ KUMAR

PRATIBHA PATIL. Jayalalitha. Mayawati. Sania Mirza. For each modern, successful woman that we appreciate and laud, the inescapable reality is that in the villages of India, even a lifeline is not something women can take for granted. Travelling through the villages in Salem and Dharmapuri districts of Tamil Nadu is a journey into the heart of this darkness — a journey in which one encounters the deep-rooted prejudice against the girl child at every turn. It was this region that had a high female infanticide rate in the 1990s: women would kill newborn girl children by giving them milk laced with kalli paal (an extract of a poisonous cactus plant) or paddy husk. It’s hardly surprising that these two districts top the cradle baby charts. It was in a bid to stop the practice that the state began arresting parents accused of female infanticide under Section 302 IPC (murder).

In 1994, for the first time, a case was registered against an agricultural coolie worker, Karuppayee from Usilampatti. She was charged with killing her girl child, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. An estimated 100 such cases were registered. In February this year, the Madras High Court awarded life imprisonment to another couple from Namakkal district for killing their girl child in 2001, observing: “It is unfortunate that…the practice of female infanticide still prevails…A child, being supremely important national asset, should be nurtured. This is more so in the case of a female child.” These poor parents, however, see a female child as a liability. In a village near Pennagaram in Dhamapuri district, we met a woman who said, with no remorse, that she killed her child by giving her a glass of concentrated salt water. Her argument: she would have suffered had she lived. She felt that she’d done her a great service, extinguishing her life at birth, saving her from hardship. If her logic sounded warped, she certainly had the courage of conviction.

In Poyar Colony, Seeramma proudly holds the hand of her 5-year-old son. She was accused of killing her girl child in 2001 — the son was born later. For Kandammal of Aanaikalanur, the only regret is that she does not have a male child. In 2001, she was arrested with her husband and in laws on charges of killing her girl child, her fourth consecutive daughter. The government has not pursued the cases against Kandammal and Seeramma, after a campaign by NGOs. “Many of those arrested had girl children already. Those girls became orphans when their parents were sent to jail,” says Pennagaram- based M. Shankar, director of Development Education and Environment Protection Society. It’s for parents with this level of desperation that the cradle baby scheme was launched. But social workers in these districts say the practice of female infanticide has not been eradicated. A Renganathan, director of a Salem based NGO says that some parents prefer to kill unwanted girl children instead of handing her over to the government. “It causes grief for a few days, then it’s over. To hand over the child for adoption would give them life-long worry.” he says.

In Mettur, Salem district, the Welfare Centre for Women and Children (WCWC), has devised an innovative program to combat female infanticide. The organisation identifies pregnant women and places those with two or more girl children in high risk category and monitor them closely. “If any of them delivers a female child, we try to create a bond between the child and the mother. This helps reducing female infanticide considerably,” says R Sampath, director. Many of those who have given their babies to the government are facing social ostracism. Gomathi, from Thottalampatti village in Dharmapuri district, is still taunted by neighbours three years after giving up her daughter. Seventy-year-old Chinnamma, standing nearby, rubs it in: “Gomathi made a mistake. She should have brought up the other child herself and not given it to the government.” On hearing this, Gomathi’s eyes well up in tears and she starts weeping.

Not everyone is like Gomathi though. Devaraj and Govindamma from Palayamputhur village near Dharmapuri feel they took the right decision in handing over their fourth child to the government, two days after she was born. “We had no money. Instead of all of us starving, we felt it would be better to hand over our new baby to the cradle scheme,” says Devaraj, a daily wage earner. The gender bias is clear — girls must make way for families to survive.