By Brij Khandelwal, IANS
Agra : While markets decked up and women dressed up Monday to celebrate Karva Chauth, in which wives fast for the long lives of their husbands, doctors and activists in this city of the Taj made a plea for the girl child and campaigned against a society that nurtures feudal tendencies.
As doctors held up a mirror to society and dissected their own system that thrives on “green and red currency notes” and has led to rampant female foeticide, activists here voiced their protest against the hyping of the traditional festival.
On the eve of Karva Chauth Sunday, the International College of Surgeons held a conference to interact with members of the Agra Citizens’ Forum to explore the murky world “of murderers in white garb”.
Medical activist Arun Tiwari said “there had not been a single case in India of a doctor being forced at gun point to conduct a sex determination test”. No one forces the doctors to conduct these tests, “it’s their own greed and lust for money”, he said.
Another medico activist, Jaideep Malhotra, said the “time had come when we should all express our determination and resolve to say NO. But this can come only when we give up our greed”.
Ranju Agarwal, another doctor, blamed feudal tendencies being nurtured and promoted by a new consumer culture that projected daughters as a burden on the society and boys as an asset.
According to Megh Singh Yadav, convener of the NGO Nari Astitva Bachao (Save a woman’s existence), female foeticide was “a concrete case of human rights violation and should be referred to the UN if the Indian government failed to check this menace”.
A study in the journal Lancet last year estimated that more than 10 million girl children may have been lost in India due to abortions, leading to a skewed gender ratio of only 933 females to every 1,000 males.
Several activists in Agra have objected to the hyping of Karva Chauth celebrations.
“For hundreds of years, India’s feudal society has exploited women and subjected them to all kinds of discrimination and atrocities. The same women are lured into observing fasts and conducting ritualistic pujas for the welfare of their tormentors. What an irony!” said Netra Pal Singh, a family welfare counsellor of the All India Women’s Conference.
“Consumer society has created such a hype that all kinds of cosmetics, jewellery and clothes are being bought by women as gifts from their husbands in return for year-long agonising exploitation in various ways,” added culture critic Mahesh Dhakar.
Local bazaars have been lit up and new products to lure the fasting women have been attractively displayed. Newspapers have brought out special supplements on the occasion.
“The whole exercise is market driven. The essential spirit of equality and shared responsibilities is never honed unfortunately. I would suggest a joint fast for the health of both the partners and if the in laws can join so much the better. Less work for at least one day,” scoffed homemaker Padmini K. Iyer.