Rohtak: Women stand in a row with their right hand stretched out. They are taking a pledge to not kill a girl child.
“We will report female foeticide to the Anganwadi if we come across cases,” the women swear in unison at an Aganwadi center in Samar Gopalpur village of Haryana’s Rohtak district.
For the past two years, ASHA workers have been mobilising both men and women to take this pledge daily. It began as an ambitious Haryana government Beti Bachao Beti Padhao initiative. It was showcased as a campaign that is changing the state’s attitude toward girl children. Now, it has become a routine morning pledge, no more firing people up for social change. It’s not improving the sex ratio at birth of this village that stands at 666. And the rural health delivery workers – ASHA and Anganwadi – have no answers to give.
Three decades of government and social intervention in Haryana to crack down on the skewed sex ratio and female foeticide showed results at first. Then the guard dropped. And in the last two years, Haryana is slipping again. It has become just another government programme and targets, slogans, incentives are all lost in the great Indian bureaucratic complacency.
Nine out of 22 districts of Haryana, including Rohtak, Sirsa, Fatehabad, Sonipat, Yamuna Nagar, Jind, Chakhri Dadri, have recorded a drop in the sex ratio at birth. The overall sex ratio at birth of the state has also witnessed a decline from 942 in 2022 to 921 in 2023. What is raising concerns is the fluctuating sex ratio at birth in the last four years – it went from 923 in 2019 to 914 in 2021, before rising marginally to 917 in 2022.
“We are making pledges, going door-to-door and talking to people. We are doing everything but the sex ratio at birth is still not improving,” said 57-year-old Bimla Devi, holding a sizable poster that bears a message “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao.”
After six years of hype and hoopla and national headlines, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao is now flagging. Despite the hard-fought impressive gains in improving the sex ratio in Haryana in half-a-decade, there is a noticeable decline. And ground workers, IAS officers, and officials at the Chief Minister’s office quietly admit to the growing sloth engulfing the campaign.
“Once the sex birth ratio was below 800. But we have come out of the red zone now. It’s true that there has not been much improvement and the sex ratio is fluctuating but the government is pulling out all the stops for ensuring improvement. The mobile ultrasound machines have made it really challenging. People have made it a source of employment. But at least we are not like Delhi and Punjab. We are working on it,” said Girdhari Lal Singhal, project coordinator in Haryana for Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao.
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Empty slogans
Haryana has been here before. It knows the reasons all too well, and has tried a bouquet of measures to counter centuries of son-preference. It had gone through debilitating cycle of a bachelor surplus to bought-brides to robber-brides. But through all this, experts believed the state had turned the corner and the numbers were under control. In 2019, it reported an impressive sex ratio at birth. In fact, at 920 Delhi was worse than Haryana in 2019.
42-year-old Deepika Saini assumed the role of District Programme Officer in Rohtak last year. She landed bang in the middle of a new ‘old’ crisis. Since then, Saini has been visiting villages to understand the reason behind the recent decline in sex ratio at birth. Through her visits, Saini has identified three issues: the villagers still prefer boys over girls, the government’s campaign has reached stagnation and families are stopping after having a male child.
She doubled down and tried all the interventions that had worked before.
In the past one year, Saini has installed ten hoardings against female foeticide in Rohtak city and has also got over hundred walls painted with slogans in villages. Rohtak has recorded the lowest sex ratio at birth of 883 in 2023 and since then, the district officers are brainstorming to tackle the alarming situation.
During one of her meetings with the workers and officials, she also came up with a new slogan that sounded more like a warning – Beti Nahi Bachaoge toh Bahu kahan se laoge (If you don’t save daughters, where will you get the wives from?). The slogans have reached every village of Haryana and are sung during the campaign walkathon every month. At these meets, school girls wearing white shirts and caps walk through the city raising the slogans of Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao.
But all these efforts are not bearing any tangible results, she said. And Saini is not alone to have observed this. Deputy commissioners and additional deputy commissioners of several districts of Haryana pointed out at two significant issues plaguing the campaign: lack of innovation and the programme losing prominence in the government’s priorities.
One of the officers who has been closely working on the Beti Padhao campaign said that earlier the programme was directly managed by CMO but now, no regular meetings are taking place.
Earlier, in meeting between District Commissioners and Former principal secretary to CM Manohar Lal Khattar Rakesh Gupta, Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao would be discussed frequently. But in last one year, officials said, no such regular meetings have been taking place. The government’s priorities have changed and the campaign has taken a backseat.
“There is no regular monitoring. Earlier, a meeting would take place every month. Now, it doesn’t take place for months. With the government not paying attention, the schemes have become event management programs,” said an IAS officer posted in one of the southern districts of Haryana, on condition of anonymity.
ThePrint spoke to several Deputy Commissioners (DC) who revealed on the condition of anonymity that they feel unappreciated by the government and hence, many have discontinued their efforts in working on the programme. The officers also said that during meetings with CMO staff if they reported that their days were spent implementing Beti Bachao, they are often rebuked and their work not counted. Officers are told to concentrate only on the documentation work for the programme and not waste time in visits.
I was the victim of the son preference culture. My mother wanted to get me vaccinated but I had a joint family and elders were against the idea
— Deepika Saini, District Programme Officer, Rohtak
“When an IAS officer is given charge of a district, it takes them a few months to understand the region and come up with new strategies. They work hard on implementation and when the result time comes, they are transferred. This is making officers feel unrecognised,” said another DC.
But Saini is determined to turn around the sex ratio at birth in Rohtak. “I was the victim of the son preference culture. My mother wanted to get me vaccinated but I had a joint family and elders were against the idea,” Saini said. As she was growing, she developed a limp and later was partially disabled.
She is now turning to the one sector that everybody — from corporations to governments to political parties — are enlisting: influencers.
At her office in Rohtak’s Zila Vikas Bhawan, she is preparing a list of social media influencers in Haryana.
Saini wants to rope in names such as comedian Rakhi Lohchab and Himanshi Jangra. Saini though is unsure whether her idea will be accepted.
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Incentivising the girl child
Sex ratio at birth in Mahendragarh, a Yadav-Gurjar dominated district, has declined in 2023 to 887.
At her office in Narnaul sub-division of Mahendargarh district, Deputy Commissioner Monika Gupta is signing the congratulatory certificates and counting the gift hampers meant for the newborn. Seven families have given birth to a girl child. The families would get a certificate signed by DC and a gift hamper with essentials for the newborns.
Gupta has been running the Meri Laado, Meri Shaan (My daughter, My pride) campaign under which the Kuan Pujan festival — traditionally reserved for boys — is now celebrated upon the birth of a girl. It is an important step in reversing age-old customs that gave outsized attention to boys. Gupta along with child and women development officers reaches the venue and gives speeches on the importance of a girl child. She also organises nukkad nataks (street plays) for the villagers to spread the message. The plays are organised by Wahfoundation from Kurukshetra and are comical in nature.
One of the plays staged is Sapne ki Sachai. After the protagonist (a man) becomes pregnant in his dreams and tries aborting the child, he understands the pain he made his wife go through who was forced to abort earlier. When awake, he chooses not to abort and makes his life mission to educate others.
Women officers in Haryana are personally invested in addressing the sex ratio problem and are using their own lived experiences to relate to villagers.
One thing is common in all her speeches: ‘Main ek ladki aur ek DC hoon, kal aapki ladkiya bhi DC ban sakti hai (I am a woman and a District Commissioner, tomorrow your daughters can also become Commissioners.)’
“I am trying to give them hope. We can only follow two approaches — a regulatory approach that falls under PCPNDT and a motivational approach that is to try and change social behavior. To change the social fabric of society it takes some time,” said Gupta as she signed another congratulatory certificate. But the gifts are not from the government’s fund, Gupta has roped in social organisations who feel for the cause and donate voluntarily.
The low sex ratio in Haryana hasn’t only led men to buy wives from other states. Even the families had to go through the trouble of loot and scoot brides. They couldn’t even report to the police because of the “embarrassment”. Predatory prices by fly-by-night operators, hand-held ultrasound devices and the price war that made touts and quacks thrive while remaining undetected posed a challenge for the government.
That’s when the authorities thought of deploying decoys — pregnant women in their second trimester (when the foetus can be identified) hired by the health department and police.
Along with several responsibilities that come with supervising a district, Gupta also keeps a close watch on the sex determination rackets in Mahendargarh. She has the chief medical officers, decoys and everyone in the loop.
But she admitted it’s hard to get a decoy these days and train them. Despite Rs 1 lakh prize reserved for the decoys, they are not forthcoming. The decoys have to be pregnant women and they are to be trained on how to act at the clinic so that they don’t appear afraid.
Gupta blamed porous borders with Rajasthan and Punjab, hand-held DIY machines and easily available untrained touts.
She is also experimenting with new ideas. In November 2023, she organised a seminar raising awareness on female infanticide. She invited the sarpanch, panches, Aganwadi and ASHA workers of 374 villages and distributed a piece of paper asking them to write the name of clinics and people who are involved in sex determination. Gupta gave them assurance that their name won’t be revealed.
“We received 500 chits. Several chits had the same name and that’s how we started conducting raids.”
In December, Gupta’s team was on their way to raid a clinic in Rajasthan’s Kotputli, when the doctor sensed something fishy and canceled the appointment last minute.
“When the team reached the clinic, it was shut and they later found out that the doctor had shifted to some other district and we lost a very important lead. This is one of the many challenges,” Gupta said.
Haryana’s health minister has also blamed illegal gender detection facilities behind the low sex ratio at birth.
“The flagship ‘save the girl child’ programme has been suffering setbacks due to availability of illegal gender detection facilities in the neighbouring states. The people of Haryana now prefer neighbouring states to undergo sex determination tests,” Anil Vij told the reporters after Haryana showed dip in SRB.
In 2023, the health department in Haryana conducted 36 successful inter-state raids and as many FIRs. Around 85 FIRs were registered in 2023 and 105 FIRs were lodged in 2022 under Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PNDT) and Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) acts.
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Choosing death over male child
Asha in Kaithal is three-month pregnant. In her first two pregnancies, she gave birth to a daughter. She is desperate for a son and has even gone to the neighbourhood pundit who gave her ashes to drink before the sunrise.
“The pundit said that it will reverse the gender of the child if it was a girl,” she said, touching her protruding belly.
Asha is not convinced. She and her husband Rakesh are on a lookout for a cheap sex determination doctor in Uttar Pradesh. On her WhatsApp, the list of doctors she got from Punjab and Rajasthan are very expensive. She said her doctor had asked her to avoid third child because of her declining health.
“The society doesn’t let you live, the family looks down upon you for not having a son. A woman has to deal with a lot of criticism and taunts. And I personally feel without son, with whom will we spend our old age.”
How govt treats women
In the Badli village of Jajjhar, Rita Devi’s everyday routine involves going door-to-door to educate people on the sex ratio and importance of a girl child. But she is met with criticism, angry stares and people often are not willing to listen to her.
Devi said that Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao is losing steam. Villagers are not ready to hear her out and are only asking one question: “If the government is so concerned about girls, why did they let our female wrestlers protest? Why haven’t they taken any formidable action against former minister Sandeep Singh and Brij Bhushan?”
But Devi has no answers to these questions. “I ask them to pose these questions to the Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar through the CM window. Answering these questions is not my domain,” Devi said.
It has become a routine. We are doing the same thing over and over again. Taking pledges, educating women, raising slogans. There is nothing new in it now—Bunty, ASHA worker
She recalled posing this question to then health department officials during a meeting. Every month, two meetings of the health department with the rural health delivery workers takes place and Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao is also one of the topics. But workers said with no support from the government, not much headway is made in the implementation of the scheme.
“The officials were clueless and asked us to manage the work somehow and said that they will raise the same with the seniors but there has been no response since then,” Devi said.
Another ASHA worker Bunty said that the ‘save girl programme’ has lost the required urgency and the workers and officials are not motivated.
“It has become a routine. We are doing the same thing over and over again. Taking pledges, educating women, raising slogans. There is nothing new in it now,” she said.
At Bunty’s house, women have gathered to discuss the way ahead for the ‘save girl’ campaign. Bunty is optimistic that the change will come but Umresh isn’t convinced. She said that the presence of fewer women has led to the men in villages buying women from other states but families and men don’t understand. Bunty countered, saying that the situation is better than what it was ten years ago.
Umresh’s entire village watched the wrestlers protesting and crying on their phones. While the villagers watched videos of wrestlers on phones, Umresh heard them saying that the “state has left their women.”
“The government wants us to have daughters and then they won’t protect them. The government has themselves chosen men over women by making our female wrestlers protest and resign,” Umresh asks.
“What message are they sending to the people on the ground? That you give birth to girls and when they are in trouble, we will leave them alone.”
Everyone goes silent.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)
Hats off to writer for such a wonderful truth. We need to escalate effort for prevention of Female foeticide.