Happier New Year for girl child in Haryana

By

Amar Nath Wadehra & Randeep Wadehra

Sometime back there was a news report mentioning that some couples in Haryana have solemnized their marriage with eight pheras instead of the traditional seven. A phera consists of a bride and a bridegroom going round the sacred fire. Each phera is completed with one vow. The traditional seven vows form the guidelines for their married lives. Now, some couples have added eighth phera whereby they take oath to protect and nurture their daughter(s) and not resort to female feticide/homicide. This is a positive portent for the future. Will the year 2012 see this “straw in the wind” concretizing into a mass societal movement? One is quite optimistic, given the trends in society and the positive attitude of the Hooda government in this regard.

In Haryana there are certain rituals associated either with the birth of a male child or his exclusive status in the family and society as adult. For example on his birth there is a ceremony called kuan pooja. Again, on the sixth day after a male child’s birth there are celebrations including community feasting. Although the scale of such celebrations supposedly depends on the house holder’s economic status the expenses invariably exceed his means. But, he seldom complains as the birth of a son is considered akin to winning a lottery! Similarly, on the eve of his marriage he performs the ghurchadi ritual when he rides a horse/mare and goes around the village. Moreover, in case of a death in the family, he alone has the right to perform last rites. A girl child does not figure in any of these rituals. Firstly, her birth itself is not considered auspicious – a contradiction really since all our deities who bestow auspiciousness like wealth (Lakshmi), knowledge and wisdom (Saraswati), courage and strength (Durga) etc are females.

For ages women in Haryana have been at the receiving end of discrimination at the hands of the patriarchal society. Till recently, the purdah system was strictly observed in Haryana. Women were supposed to confine themselves to the kitchen and household chores. Presently, the scourge of dowry has reached such inhumane levels that parents look upon daughters as an economic burden. Although there is the karewa system in Haryana still a widow or a divorcee becomes lifelong burden on her parental family. As a corollary, a woman giving birth to daughters and failing to deliver a son gets stigmatized. The prevailing religious belief that only birth of sons ensures moksha for a family is so strong that it blocks the woman’s path to emancipation. Moreover, thanks to the intensely commercial social practices a daughter “takes away” the family’s wealth while a son enables retention of wealth within the family, indicating to the harsh fact that giving birth to sons is a more lucrative proposition as they fetch dowry.

However, to quote Alfred Tennyson, “The old order changeth, yielding place to new.” The Haryana society, too, is witnessing this phenomenon. There have been media reports of certain families in Haryana performing the kuan pooja even on the birth of their daughters. Then there was this young woman who performed ghurchadi on the eve of her wedding and was supported by her family and the villagers too! Similarly, more and more families are reportedly celebrating the births of their daughters in different parts of the rural Haryana. There have also been reports of daughters treated as, or at par with, sons in many other ways too. For example, the orthodoxy did not raise objections when a girl performed the last rites of her father. But, perhaps, the most visible signs have been in the sports arena. Apart from the star turn by badminton champion Saina Nehwal we have seen girls taking part in various international hockey and wrestling competitions including the Commonwealth Games. These girls come from the conservative core of the Haryana society. Some girls, in interviews to media, have acknowledged the contribution of their men folk towards their becoming champion wrestlers. They revealed how they were encouraged to take up wrestling by their parents and also allowed to practice with male wrestlers in order to hone their skills up to world class levels. This sort of attitude in a patriarchal society is apparently having a positive impact on the rest of the society. Although they may not even have heard of Bob Dylan, popular American singer and lyricist, but his following lines are apt:

“Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand.”

But, certainly, mothers and fathers in today’s Haryana increasingly understand the importance of enabling the girl child to become self-dependent. They have realized that, in order to enable her to live a life of dignity, the female child must have adequate skills as well as assets of her own. Obviously, the year 2012 will see more and more parents becoming sensitive to such needs of their daughters.

On its part the state government too has taken steps to ensure the emergence of an enlightened Haryana society wherein the girl child would be able to live with self-respect. First and foremost, the Haryana government has focused on education and health of the girl-child. A network of schools, polytechnics, colleges and universities has been created over the decades. The government has ensured that in Haryana a primary school is available within a radius of one kilometer, middle level education facilities are available within a radius of 1.87 kilometers and high schools are available within a radius of 2.1 kilometers of where a student lives. The State Council of Educational Research and Training or SCERT at Gurgaon was established in April 1979 after merging the State Institute of Education and the State Institute of Science with the intention to provide new dimensions to school education. It has been the endeavor of the government to make educational facilities available to the poorest of children. The Haryana Board of School Education, which was established in 1969, conducts public examinations at middle, matriculation, and senior secondary levels twice a year. The Board also conducts examinations for Haryana Open School at senior and senior secondary levels twice a year. The Haryana government provides free education to women up to the Bachelor's Degree level. The 10+2 education system consists of two components i.e. vocational and general education. The vocational program was introduced in 1983-84 in 24 institutions. Stress is being laid on the promotion of primary education so as to check the drop-out rate at lower levels. A number of incentives are also given to students to attract them to the educational institutes, with encouraging results.  In order to encourage rural girls for pursuing higher education, an award is proposed for top 3 girls from each block , who   will be given an award of Rs.2000/-, Rs.1500/- and Rs.1000/- for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd positions respectively and who have passed their matriculation  examination conducted by Haryana State Education Board from schools in rural areas. The state has already set up an exclusive university for women, the Bhagat Phool Singh Mahila Vishwavidyalaya (Women University) near Sonepat.

Not only do the educated women feel enabled to get suitable jobs but their skills are being employed for the general welfare of the society. For example, Sakshar Mahila Samooh (SMS) has been formed in various villages. Each SMS consists of a group of educated women in every village to lend necessary resource support to the Gram Panchayat and its subcommittee for effective discharge of the functions assigned to them. It organizes and enrolls all educated women who are at least matriculate, including school going girls at Plus 2 stage and former members of Balika Mandals under Kishori Shakti Yojna. The SMS has a steering committee of ten members, five being the most educated women of the village who would co-opt another five girls studying in 11th or 12th class.  In case, the total strength of SMS is less than 25 in a village, women who are at least 8th pass would be enrolled as members. Such an organized pool of educated women and girls in the village helps generate awareness on key issues of sex ratio, literacy, universalisation of elementary education, health and nutrition, opportunities for economic empowerment for women, hygiene, sanitation and environment, and schemes run by the Government for women, girls, children and village community. The members of the SMS contribute to social audit, so necessary to improve delivery of various goods and services. They play an important role in ensuring participation of the village community in Gram Sabha meetings, thus facilitating active involvement of educated women and girls in the villages who have a lot of potential to contribute to the promotion of social agenda.

Realizing the importance of media as effective agent of social reform the government has been using it for carrying out awareness drives on issues related to girl child and gender sensitization. In fact, the Government of Haryana has an elaborate programme that comprises the following steps:

1. Special advocacy measures against female feticide, dowry, child marriage, etc. through audio as well as visual media aids.
2. Production of documentaries on social evils like female feticide, dowry, child marriage, malnutrition and importance of women and girl child in the society and screening these documentaries  in Anganwadi Centres, Community places, Schools, Colleges and other Educational/Technical Training Institutes through ICDS functionaries.
3. For wider advocacy of CEDAW convention and the Convention on the Rights of child, the main components of these will be printed and distributed to all MLAs, all Sarpanches and Panches, Members of Panchayat Samities, Zila Parishads, Municipal Councilors, all students from 9th class to 12th class, all students of colleges, ITIs, Engineering Colleges, all Anganwadi Workers/ICDS functionaries and distribution in exhibitions from time to time.
4. IEC material on female feticide, dowry, child marriage, malnutrition etc. and printing of  citizen charter, copies of which will be printed and distributed at the Anganwadi/Panchayat/municipal levels.  
5. Awareness generation among communities through voluntary organizations for eradicating social evils like female feticide, dowry, violence against women including low level of female literacy.
6. Organizing awareness generating activities by Dowry Prohibition Officers in schools, colleges, other technical and educational institutes and among the communities on various occasions and celebrations.
7. Printing of pamphlet/booklet/leaflet having subject matter of guidelines on feeding practices, care of new born, care and needs of pregnant and nursing mothers, nutrition, problems and needs of adolescent girls, Hygiene and Sanitation, detection of disabilities, AIDS and Violence against women etc. to be distributed to all registered pregnant and nursing mothers with Anganwadi Centres, all Anganwadi Workers, Adolescent girls under Kishori Shakti Yojna.
8. Organizing Demonstrations/Camps/Sessions at village level by ICDS functionaries on health and nutrition, child care etc. and disseminating information concerning   schemes of women and child and social evils including holding exhibitions periodically. 
9. Talks about various social evils and needs of women and children in Gram Sabha Meetings, VLC meetings/SMS meeting and creating awareness regarding various social issues like female literacy, low sex ratio, and low status of women etc.
10. Periodical Village level/Panchayat level workshops/Knowledge Meetings  for panchayat members/VLC/SMS members including women social workers, village level government functionaries to sensitize them about the needs of women and child through ICDS infrastructure.  
11. Dissemination of information about social evils, services available and about developmental schemes in Balika Mandals for adolescent girls by ICDS functionaries involving local level officials.  
12. Involve Public Relations Department, Haryana and All India Radio/Local Theatre Group for performing Nukkad Nataks for creating public opinion against the evils of female feticide, dowry, child marriages, and malnutrition.  

There are other girl child friendly schemes too. The Ladli Scheme aims at countering the factors that encourage female feticide. Under the scheme all parents residents of Haryana or having Haryana domicile will be provided financial incentive @ Rs. 5000/- per year for up to five years whose second girl child is born on or after 20th August, 2005. To fight against stigmatization of daughter-bearing mothers the Best Mother Award has been instituted. It is given to a woman who has married at the age of 18 or after and her husband’s age is 21 years; moreover, she should have at least one girl child.

There is no dearth of relevant laws enacted to protect and promote the girl child. For example, it is illegal to allow or facilitate marriage of a boy under 21 and a girl under 18. Stringent laws exist that provide for deterrent punishment to such medical practitioners as indulge in sex determination tests.

Such healthy developments in the Haryana society are bound to improve the quality of the girl child’s life. With the increase in spread of education comes enlightenment. With information comes empowerment. Positive steps taken by the Haryana Government have facilitated the spread of enlightenment of the Haryana society and empowerment of women. Let us not forget that these effects take time to become visible. Good education and positive governmental support will help evolve the Haryana Society. The year 2012 will certainly be a far better one than the previous years as far as the improvement in the status of women in Haryana is concerned.