Jalahmajra residents say the turnaround is a result partly of a campaign by the region’s top administrative official, Krishan Kumar.
JALAHMAJRA/PUNJAB: Barely eight months old, Nandini sleeps in her mother’s arms, unaware how lucky she is to have been born. For, in Punjab, where her village is located, a large number of girls are either killed before birth, or are considered a curse by their parents whose traditional preference is for sons.
With only 798 girls for every thousand boys under the age of six, Punjab has the lowest sex ratio in the country, where the figure is 927, well below the worldwide average of 1,050 female babies.
But in Jalahmajra, where Nandini was born, there is an average of 1,020 girls per 1,000 boys, a national aberration that has put the village at the forefront of a campaign to stem the crisis. The distinction also earned the village an award of Rs300,000 by the state government last week, which announced the reward last year to any Punjab village which reports more girls than boys among its population.
Jalahmajra residents say the turnaround is the result partly of a sustained campaign by the region’s top administrative official, Krishan Kumar, who heads Nawanshahr district, in which the village is located. “Earlier when a girl was born, people in the streets would ask the mother: ‘Didn’t you undergo a test to know the gender?’ That has stopped,” says head teacher Devender Singh, referring to the practice of aborting baby girls after pre-natal tests. “Now there is a girl in every house in our village,” says Nandini’s 24-year-old mother Sangeeta Sidhu, who says her family is happy that she and her mason husband Gurdeep now have a “complete” pair of a son and a daughter.
The couple say they want to educate Nandini and are not worried about arranging a dowry for her marriage.
Another 70 of Nawanshahr district’s 472 villages are close to achieving the national average of a sex ratio of 927, says district chief Kumar, who launched the campaign against abortions last year.
Under the drive, Kumar mobilised all voluntary bodies in the state and hundreds of school children in street plays to create awareness in the remotest villages of the district. Local workers were asked to inform him if any woman was pregnant, so that his officials could give her a cautionary call to convey the message that the authorities were keeping a watch.
In a few cases, where a family went in for an abortion, he organised mock mournings outside their house to bring public humiliation to the family.
“The results are bearing fruit. Last month, an average of 944 girls were born for an average of 1000 boys in the entire district,” says Kumar. Kumar maintains a computerised record of all the pregnant women in his district. Coming up next are hidden camera ‘sting’ operations on doctors carrying out illegal tests.
Social change
- 798 girls for every thousand boys under the age of six in Punjab
- 927 girls for every thousand boys is the national figure
- 1,020 girls per 1,000 boys in the village of Jalahmajra
- 300,000 awarded to the village for improving its sex ratio
- 70 of Nawanshahr district's 472 villages are close to achieving the national average
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}