HOPE AGAINST HOPE

By the time you read this article, Nadia, a foundling, will be off to Primary section of one of the best Schools of the city. The headline “Newborn bitten to death by dogs in Guwahati” in Telegraph India on January 16, reminded me of her. It has been almost half a decade I first heard of her.

A middle aged man was on his usual stroll on a foggy morning of a cold December, 5 years back. Except for a few street dogs pulling on a branded plastic bag, nothing was unusual. He overheard two child rag-pickers engaged in a very serious conversation about the bag. He stopped dead in tracks as soon as he heard that they had seen an infant in the bag. He rushed back and shooed the dogs away.

The street dogs had pulled the baby out of the layers of cloth she was wrapped in and dragged her some distance. The infant was wrapped in a bed sheet and by looking at the cloth and the packet she was wrapped in, she seems to have belonged to a well-to-do family. The canine had sunk teeth into soft flesh. The blood stained, wounded infant was rushed to the authorities and hospital. She spent some weeks in neonatal intensive care while she recuperated, although medics had no hope of her survival.

Nadia, as her name signifies “hope against hope” survived. She survived the bitter December cold and the multiple canine bites, starving and all alone. She was christened Nadia by her adoptive father, the man who rescued her. Over 5 now, she casts her white magic wherever she goes be it school or malls or acquaintances. All she does is shake her Rasna-girl-like ponytail and flash her ear-to-ear wide grin.

But all abandoned infants are not fortunate enough as Nadia. Like the infant found in Guwahati last month, who succumbed to injuries on way to hospital. In both the occasions mentioned above sex selective abandonment with intention of homicide was suspected. This along with sex selective abortions has become a significant social phenomenon in several parts of India transcending all castes, class, communities and even the North South dichotomy.

According to a report in International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences January 2006, it was found that out of 8,000 foetuses aborted in six city hospitals 7,999 foetuses were of girls. N. Desai in “Born to die” (1988) reported that female infanticide was so widespread in Jadeja (Rajput) families of Kutch and Saurashtra that only five of such families were found who had not killed their ‘new-born’ daughters.

A series of government circulars banned the sex determination tests from 1977 onwards. But this attitude is rooted in a complex set of social, cultural, and economic factors. It is the dowry system, lack of economic independence, social customs and traditions that have relegated the

female to a secondary status. The degree may vary but the neglect of the girl child

and discrimination goes hand-in- hand and it requires a lot more than orders, laws and circulars from the government to be eliminated.