How Can a Mother Land (India) Be In So Much Trouble...

If you live on Continent Europe, America or Australia, then perhaps hearing that 40 million girls can go missing in India alone, seems like an illusion, an impossbility.

A little more digging and with an article newly posted you'll realize that getting 40 million girls to disappear is a matter of money. With approximately 1.1 billion people living in India (as of 2010), approximately 50,000 female fetuses are being aborted each month.

Although it is apparently a crime to use an ultrasound machine or to abort a fetus, this is not stopping desperate parents to commit unspeakable crimes. You see, families must pay dowries to marry off their daughters. Yet when a boy is born he is celebrated because he will bring in the money (from the future in-laws). A girl born on the other hand is a financial burden.

The article talks about an Indian woman committing suicide every 4 hours because of a dowry dispute. When girls get married they are to bring jewelry, cash and other gifts to the new in-laws. Failing to do so will cause the girl to be burnt to death (by kerosene).

Interestingly enough, it is the wealthy families who commit these unspeakable crimes, not the poor ones.

It is believed that by the year 2020 the women-men ratio will reach 20:80 as female fetus killing is going rampant. During the last 20 years over ten million girls have been killed by their own parents. Either through abortion or immediately after birth.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau Report of 2006, rape is the fastest growing crime in India even though most are never reported. "Every hour an Indian woman faces two rapes, two kidnappings, four molestations and seven incidents of cruelty from husbands or relatives." Over 90% do not trust the government or the police.

According to this article, when you consider that India's wealth is owned by only 36 families (who own $191 billion), then it may not be a surprise that the caste system is also controlled by these same families perhaps.

I do not know what the answer is. We know poverty stricken countries exist all over the planet, but this is so much more than just a country that is poverty stricken. In a way I am surprised that India is still standing...

How did a country, whom so many consider the heart-beat of our spiritual wisdom, become so misguided...

And what can we do to help?

We can't all pack up and leave for India to go tell those 'men' to start treating their women better, the problem is so much deeper.

Thoughts please...

Do you know how this 'caste' system started, Nilanjana? Who started the segregation of it all?

For Western people (and I'm talking 'general') we look to India for spiritual wisdom. With people like Ghandhi and Yogananda leading the way to a better, more peaceful world that integrates East with West, we get a different kind of picture than what is the reality. And then there is Bollywood, which puts on the most amazing movies filled with romance, respect between men and women, dance, song, beauty and the most vibrant colors. And as an outsider it makes you think that 'all is okay in India.'

Yet there is the reality...

How can it be so drastic?

Perhaps this is why Mother Theresa chose India to be the land where she would pour herself out in this life time of hers...

It's amazing that in some parts of the world spirituality as in 'all inclusiveness' and 'equality' is becoming stronger and stronger and in other parts of the world people can still be bought - and it's legalized as part of the tradition.

Then again - let me not talk about the most prestigious form of slavery - professional sports in the U.S. (or anywhere where players can be bought and shipped around). How hideous to call someone the 'owner' of an entire basketball team and having 'drafts' to sell and buy players. Just another form of slavery - glorified at that.