Kick the can down the road. We have heard this expression countless times in U.S. political and economic debate. But citizens take comfort – the United States apparently does not have a monopoly on narrow-minded, short-term thinking.
Enter India.
Culturally, India maintains a patriarchal attitude as a society. Female babies are aborted at mind-boggling rates in many areas of the country where the national ratio of female to male is 94 to100 . Even more bizarre are the prospects that certain districts in India are approaching an 80 to100 ratio as the desire for smaller families permeates the land.
Of course, these figures ignore the abandonment of female babies in India which significantly outweighs male abandonment.
Superficially, a shortage of women may sound like the premise of good jokes among late night talk show hosts, however, Indian officials aren’t laughing at what is turning into a national tragedy.
“Wife-sharing” (exactly what it sounds like), rape, kidnapping, and hosts of social injustices are surfacing at an alarming pace. The underground sale of young girls continues uninterrupted in some villages while violence against women climbs at unprecedented rates.
Does this sound like a country worthy of proclaiming itself a democracy?
India is a country rich in culture. It is admired for its intellectual capacity in many disciplines – mathematics, engineering, medicine, etc. Its government is respected. The vast majority of its citizens practice Hinduism, a religion whose tenets include the promotion of tolerance.
In this manner, India is truly an enigma; a society that understands at its core the value of women, yet cannot escape its patriarchal beliefs. The need for equality among the sexes is obvious. However, its cultural core is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy and, thus, reaping what it sows – a world where boys are desired and loved but grow up to be men without a mate. In a strange twist, with all its desires to preserve Indian culture, it is slowly choking it to death as more males cannot find females to marry and raise children.
Of course, this isn’t a problem for the rich where healthy dowries are paid for young girls.
This leads to consideration of what measures India’s leadership has taken to correct this injustice. While I do not fully grasp all the cultural and economic problems of the country, it seems just too obvious that a society ‘running out of women’ is an abomination on so many levels.
This doesn’t even address the morality of abortions (both early and late term), child abandonment, sexism, rape, slavery, prostitution, etc.
Did someone ever stop and consider that none of this makes sense?
Or was India just too busy kicking the can down the road?
References: Yahoo UK News
Nationmaster.com