The cruel atrocities of female infanticide!

The other day when I was talking to my mom, she was remarking about the resurgence of socially oriented television programs on Indian t.v. channels. She mentioned that one of them is based on the practice of female infanticide that continues even today in the states of Haryana, Punjab and I'm sure in many other states. She related a few real life specific incidents of such homicide - drowning the infant in milk vats; feeding finely ground glass... making me shudder and scream and I begged my mom to stop. Such acts make me wonder if there is any such thing as humanitarianism. We are so capable of barbaric acts! What infuriates me even more is the active involvement of women in killing their own daughters! We have simply become an active agent in propagating the ills of such practices in the name of social norms! Why haven't we got together to fight such cruel discrimination against our own kind? Why haven't we got together to throw away such "social norms" that do not preserves basic human rights? Why isn't this blown into a huge human rights issue?

One of my friends once remarked about feminist movements that they are the most fractured movements of all. We have failed in coming together and fighting for our issues, our rights, our space. If women in the villages of Haryana and Punjab got together to prevent this social evil, I'm confident that it can be achieved in no time. The question is how would we educate and empower women!

Anasuya Sengupta in Berkeley!

Ok, this is not a college update, but when I came across this event info on the mailing list, I couldn't stop thinking about Anasuya's efforts in training the Karnataka Police Force to be sensitive towards gender issues. Women's empowerment needs strong state support but the police in India have so far been ineffective in preventing crime against women so much as to be thought of being tacitly supporting further disempowerment and humiliation. Police needs to be sensitives in handling cases involving crime against women so that women begin trusting the state as their guardians.