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Please Don’t Call Us Kudimaar,
Jeeda Cries In Anguish

S P Singh

Jeeda (Bathinda)

IN the privately-run ramshackle Kamal Model School run by Kulwinder Singh, there are 66 boys and 39 girls. In the nursery, LKG, UKG and Ist, there are a total of nine girls while boys number 18. But mention the subject of skewed sex ratio, and Kulwinder is furious.

"Someone is trying to defame our village. Last time a reporter described Jeeda as Kudimaar village, we made her life hell," he said, as local repository of wisdom, RMPdoctor Roshan Lal, nodded. Local Govt Senior Secondary School also has a skewed ratio, so have other two private schools in the village.

So what explains the abysmally low number of girls in school? And the predominance of boys in the village? "May be that more boys are born in our village as part of some natural phenomena!" Kulwinder reasons. A few minutes more into the conversation and the pretentious stance starts falling apart.

Jeeda emerged as a symbol of all that was wrong with the boy-fixated Punjab psyche which sent the state's sex ratio plunging to 874 when the 2001 census results came in, the turn being the only wrong one since 1911's 780 figure. The 0-6 age group in Punjab was worst hit, the sex ratio being 793. Malwa recorded 779, but Jeeda was the focal attention point with 743.

Inference was obvious - it's tough being a girl in Punjab. Tougher in Jeeda.

Dr Roshan Lal, after denying that Jeeda's folks were more son-fixated than neighbouring villages, finally pipes up to narrate stories of how the crackdown on clinics offering ultrasound gender-determination tests have only resulted in women using primitive techniques to abort.

"Sex determination tests have only become difficult and rates have gone up. We try to make people aware about the damage to the society," he said.

Awareness was certainly not one thing lacking. Virtually everyone can deliver a sermon on the subject, even the 80-year-old chowkidar Harchand who has never seen the face of a school. And almost everyone could recall the name of the reporter whose dispatch carried a reference to Jeeda being a village of kudimaars.

Surprisingly, Jeeda has a woman sarpanch Jarnail Kaur. A scheduled caste herself, Jarnail Kaur was remarkably savvy when answering queries and took care that her responses were politically correct, but was candid enough to say that she did not deny paap was happening in the village.

She said there were times in the past when she got to know of some woman trying to abort a child because it was girl, and counseled against it. "But I never reported it to the authorities," she said.

Irked by the kudimaar tag, Jeeda's youth formed a Shere Punjab Club and launched a survey, then left it midway. Some said it was because the truth would only have confirmed the worst fears. Today, Kulwinder insisted on accompanying The Indian Express reporter when he wanted to study the 'birth and death register' of the village – the most authentic data available at primary level.

It didn't take long for Kulwinder and others to start asking how they can turn the situation around. During June 5-November 1, 2000 period, Jeeda recorded 30 sons and 15 daughters born. Between November 1, 2000 and February 20, 2001, 33 boys were born, compared to 12 girls while August 20-December 31, 2001 witnessed 35 boys and 14 girls being born.

Either Jeeda is blessed (excuse the political incorrectness), or someone is killing the girls before they were born. Kulwinder, by now, is a votary of the latter. Winds of change are perceptible, Jeeda wants to turn the corner, it's asking for directions.

"I know we are not very proactive in launching awareness drives, but a lot is being done nevertheless. However, finally all sections of the society would have to put their foot down and create conducive conditions for the girl child," said Bathinda's Civil Surgeon S K Goel.

"Unlike other crimes like theft and murder, female foeticide is one in which both parties are in collusion. It's time third parties like us and police get cracking. A beginning has been made, a couple of cases against two ultrasound clinics have been registered," he said.

"But the conviction rate in the PNDT Act is zero." "So what? Cases are on. There have been no acquittals either," retorts Dr Goel. Hope lingers.

Jeeda waits, so does rest of Punjab.

"Just don't call it kudimaar," plead villagers with folded hands. "Ma atyachar nahi kardi, samaj atyachari hai," an old woman educates me.■

October 26, 2003

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