Female Deselection and Gender Violence in India
Gender, Identity and Violence: Female Deselection in India by Rainuka Dagar, Routledge:.
Issues related to female foeticide, violence against women and girls (VAWG) and generally gender-based violence (GBV) are much discussed in various quarters including among political leaders and policy framers. However, no amount of discussion will be able to bring an end to such violence because both VAWG and GBV are extremely complex issues and deeply rooted in the complexities of societies needing close scrutiny and awareness. Rainuka Dagar has, through painstaking and elaborate research, presented a clear picture of these complexities in Gender, Identity and Violence: Female Deselection in India.
Dagar’s approach to VAWG and GBV is particularly significant because she has viewed these phenomena in the context of cultural preferences, influence of caste and religion, adverse sex ratios (SR), and the patriarchal nature of state institutions and the larger question of development policies vis-à-vis securing female life chances. Based on a diligent collection of field data she makes a global mapping of the imbalances in SR and child sex ratios (CSR) and these gender imbalances are analysed against the specific realities of Punjab and Haryana.
Dagar takes a historical approach in understanding the question of child deselection and traces the practice of male infanticide to the “social transition from the matrifamily to the father–son lineage of patriarchy occurred” (p 5). The difference between male and female infanticide was very marked. While male infanticide was in the nature of a sacrifice in accordance with certain customary practices related to particular social situations, female infanticide, according to Dagar,
emanated in societies where asset worthiness of sons and the burden of rearing daughters made a crucial difference to the economic survival and growth of the family that was organised through intergenerational dependency through the male lineage and kinship. Girls were silently annihilated... (p 9).
Male and Female Infanticide
This distinction between male and female infanticide in various cultures throughout human history is crucial. The female child is annihilated as she is considered a burden. The sacrifice of the male child, however, was—in the light of social status and customary sacrifice—considered a prestigious practice.
Male infanticide gradually became redundant as societies became patriarchal and patrilineal but female infanticide continued in many societies. In this context Dagar traces the history of female infanticide in various cultures and zeroes in on from British-administered India in the 19th century. Female deselection was/is not only confined to infanticide or foeticide but also a product of cultural neglect, malnourishment and abandonment. Though the British had tried to suppress infanticide through legislative measures in 1870, the female child continues to suffer neglect particularly in the peasant societies of North India.
Unequal Life Chances
Moving on to a section on mapping SR globally, Dagar provides statistics for SR and CSR data for the period 1950–2010 according to region, subregion and country. She uses these statistics to show “the decline in the proportion of the females has been higher in more developed regions than the less developed ones in the last half century or so...” (p 11). Although this seems to be a contradiction Dagar states that this data actually shows that the access to and availability of medical facilities and other fruits of development is also gendered. Other factors such as male mortalities in conflict zones of the world and single male migrations need to be analysed as well.
She suggests that age-wise demographic profiling could be a useful tool for policy planners interested in long-term effective planning because such a profiling can provide a clearer picture of the effects that discrimination has on the life chances for the male and female. The age-specific SR statistics for India for the period 1901–2011 clearly shows the increased mortality rate for the female in each age group. It shows that life chances for the girl child declined even when the overall health facilities were improving. This finding actually confirms the earlier contention that development need not necessarily improve the chances of survival for women.
The micro study data for Haryana and Punjab also reveal similar scenarios and more importantly this data shows that “female deselection was more widespread in educated and upper income groups in comparison to lower income groups in the locality” (p 26). Dagar thus shows that in all the states of India technologies may not always be used for female deselction but the life chances remain unequal because of cultural neglect. This neglect in the long run leads to GBV because the state and social institutions have developed various mechanisms to legitimise this violence.
Misplaced Assumption
Dagar’s examination of the deep socio-cultural roots of VAWG stands out because of her well-researched field data from micro studies in Haryana and Punjab. Although there has long been realisation of the “missing women” phenomenon, field data that provides evidence for the sociocultural and political processes which bring about this phenomenon and legitimise it, should be available and analysed.
Dagar’s field data from Punjab reinforces the point that VAWG conditions remain invisible most times and its particular forms often receive social sanction leading to the denial of right to life of women and girls. The data also shows that a paradigm of social analysis based on the assumption that development and improvement of life conditions increase the survival quotient for women and girls is misplaced. Dagar argues that
economic prosperity is an insufficient condition to fulfil the basic needs of human existence ... [and] increased capacity of women in terms of health, education, income generation, and decision—making is no safeguard against GBV and discrimination (p 103).
This vital question of whether economic prosperity can be a safeguard against violence against women has in fact been answered in the negative by scholars like Manvinder Kaur (2006), Jennifer L Solotaroff and Rohini Pande (2014) and Jacqui True (2012) in works which cover areas within and beyond South Asia. Solotaroff and Pande argue that the rapid economic changes which have opened up opportunities for more women’s participation in the economy has in fact increased violence against them in various ways—many a times as a backlash. True clearly shows how violence against women is endemic in areas where economic prosperity is apparent.
Against the backdrop of such findings Dagar’s focus on Punjab and Haryana is clearly understandable as also her point that the different phases of development bring about variations in gender differentiations and this has a bearing on the forms of gender violence. She clarifies this further by showing how, for instance, practices like wife-beating are seen as a constant over time and space whereas those like infanticide, foeticide, witch-hunting may either change or merge into different and newer forms like honour killings, acid attacks or sexual harassment at the workplace. Thus the vulnerability of women to violence remains at all stages of their lives. What is perhaps a matter of greater concern is that the patriarchal societal system has worked out mechanisms, which actually seek to legitimise VAWG.
Dagar’s seven-tiered analysis brings to the fore certain known but often missed or unquestioningly accepted phenomena which actually leads to violence against women in the long run. For instance the practice of descent through the male lineage, the patrilineal support system or situating the Dalits at the lowest rung of the society are very seldom questioned and are taken for granted as normal. The fact that these situations can be at the root of the VAWG is often overlooked. This uncontested domain of male domination is the basis for many other accepted perceptions like gender roles differentiation being “god given,” the process of legitimising the preference for the male child and subsequently also setting up of power mechanisms in the society which upholds male hegemony and the male rights over those of the female. Dagar says:
The organisation of society through the patri-descent lineage provides the uncontested domination to male positioning.... The practice of male dominance in traditional public authority structures [like the panchayats in Punjab] is deployed through the attributes of power, patronage and delivery in leadership dynamics and channelled through informal masculine networks (p 144).
The discussion on the panchayats in Punjab as sites of male control and masculinity and legitimisation of such control clearly portrays the difficulties that women faced while trying to negotiate on equal terms in the public space. The interviews with various Jat landowners and Dalit sarpanches which are used as evidence all add to the statement that panchayats are a decidedly masculine space and women’s entry into this space is both unwelcome and unacceptable since it is a challenge to male hegemony.
These patriarchal formulations are much debated and talked about but Dagar’s substantiations with field-based data and analysis is a major contribution to understanding—and ultimately checking—GBV. The book emphasises that violence against women has very deep cultural roots and therefore needs to be handled with a clear understanding of its complexities. The strength of Dagar’s arguments lie in the painstakingly collected hard data through which a number of very important conclusions are arrived at.
Culture, Politics and Justice
In this scenario of male hegemony and cultural specificities is there any hope for gender justice? This question should worry all gender-sensitive sections of society and therefore an understanding of the complexities of the issue is very necessary. Dagar shows how at different epochs in history societies have regulated the survival of the girl child (because she was the reproducer of the numbers) when food shortage in the hunting– gathering stages led to killing of all children. These practices however gradually evolved to deselection of the girl child when society transited to the father–son lineage family and this lineage decided the politics of identity. She presents three scenarios from Punjab and Haryana that show how cultural identities are determined. Each provides a clear social justification for deselection of the girl child whether to safeguard group honour or the necessity of the male child as a marker of cultural identity in the collective or as a mitigation of a perceived threat to the existing social formation.
Dagar goes into the details of the concept of bhaichara (brotherhood) and the structures and workings of the khap and shows how these helped the rural community “in the Jat-dominated areas maintain the social order through defined cultural practices, shared values and norms....” (p 182). There is also a detailing of how the “community” supports systems and develops inter-relational bonds too as a means of developing social capital. In talking of the “community” it is however important to keep in mind the reality that a community is nowhere near a homogeneous entity. Therefore the question that ought to be asked is “whose community?” If Dagar had interrogated the concept from this perspective then perhaps her approach to culture would have been more rooted in the society’s material bases. However her descriptions do enable one to see the subordination of individual rights to the collective ones.
Dagar widens her canvas by extending the significance of these collective rights to the Jat diaspora in North America and attempts to strengthen her case of the cultural legitimisation of patriliny and the norms of “masculine realms of authority” (p 199). She describes how even in the diaspora the distinct markers of the collectivity become essentials for survival and also preservation of identity. But subsuming the individual to the collectivity endangers individual human rights and in the process the rights of women and the girl child too. As a way of protecting individual rights Dagar proposes “that construction of a gender capital to negotiate delivery of individual human rights be created as a political arrangement with representation of cultural identities, political leadership and rights activists as part of the stakeholding” (p 243). This is however easier said than done as she herself realises particularly, where the survival of the girl child is concerned.
In finding solutions, Dagar critiques the form-centric analysis which studies the given factors in a particular situation. She argues that policy prescriptions based on such an approach do not address the situation as female deselection is not specific to only a form like female foeticide or dowry-related crimes, etc. It is a part of a much deeper social malaise rooted in culture-centric gender differentiation. The form-centric analysis therefore will remain at the best “descriptive, unable to factor theories of change” (p 248). The argument therefore has to move towards construction of a social order which can strengthen gender rights. This requires not only a gender sensitive politics but also a set of policies, which would not look at the issue merely from the perspective of protecting the rights of the girl child or preventing conditions of violence. The book under review therefore closes with this major suggestion for policymakers, political leaders and those committed to work for gender justice:
Women have to be addressed as active citizens in the reform process and part of public institutions, rather than a special/exclusive category. So it is not women, or men, who have to be ‘sensitised’ or tracked for the crime of female foeticide, but a realigning of the gender position is required. The focus should be on representation of gender interests, not women representation. Thus, sensitised staff, rather than only women staff who could themselves be socialised into hegemonic models of distribution of resources, and community gender-interest stakeholders rather than only women committees or women in service networks are required (p 263).
Female deselection will therefore continue in social systems where there are gendered realities and all power relations are based on gender roles and cultural preferences, which favour the survival of the male child. So it is not the form of violence that is important but an understanding of the entire sociocultural–political structure of society, which nourishes and sustains the attitudes that inally translate to VAWG. GBV is therefore a challenge which needs to be met with not just policy reforms but a long-drawn gender rights movement that takes up the varieties of specificities in the Indian society. Dagar has focused on Punjab and Haryana and her work could be a model to study GBV issue in other states as well. The field based empirical work strongly backs the arguments presented in the book. Her data highlights the fact that female deselection is not just a matter of GBV but a much deeper and complex social issue involving culturally entrenched gender norms.
An aspect that seems to have not been highlighted in the work is that with increasing urbanisation in both Punjab and Haryana cultural perceptions of both masculinity and gender rights are undergoing violent changes. As Prem Chowdhury wrote in 1998, even the modern phenomena like granting equal legal rights to women in the field of inheritance are seen as threats to male hegemony and have therefore resulted in greater violence against women who are seen to have crossed the thresholds of cultural codes (Chowdhury 1998).
The other major problem with the work is the mode of presentation. That book could have been much more coherent if the author had avoided repetition of the same theoretical argument. It could have also been easy reading if the mode of expression had been made simpler. This is important because Gender, Identity and Violence should be read not only in the higher academics but more importantly by activists in the women’s movement.
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