https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIGO%2F2018%2F09%2F29&entity=Ar01200&sk=4E48859E&mode=text
Highly distressing news last week, when the prestigious global medical journal, The Lancet published comprehensive data on suicide mortality as part of its Global Burden of Disease Study. It found, “India had 17·8% of the global population…but accounted for 36·6% of the global suicide deaths among women and 24·3% among men. The proportion of global suicide deaths in India has increased since 1990 for both sexes, but more for women than for men. Young adults are taking their own lives in alarmingly high numbers, constituting a public health crisis. Suicide ranks first as the cause of death in India in both the age groups of 15–29 years and 15–39 years, as compared with its second and third rank globally in these age groups, respectively.” These are disgraceful statistics for men, because one out of every four global male suicide deaths is in this country. But for women it is indescribably worse, with the further shocking revelation that young married women in the most developed areas are ending their lives at the highest frequency. It’s no use blaming poverty, because The Lancet determined that suicide rates for Indian women are more than three times higher than expected for countries with identical geographic and socio-economic conditions. It is now painfully undeniable that something has gone dreadfully wrong with Indian culture and society. It’s true there is significant variation across the population. For instance, it is generally better to be born female in the southern states of the country, and especially in the North-East region. But those are not the areas with the largest numbers. Zoom out, and the big picture is deeply depressing. India has the largest number of child brides in the world – an astonishing one-fifth of girls are married before the age of 15. Unsurprisingly, the National Family Health Survey reveals that every third woman in India faces domestic and sexual violence from that exact age. In addition, the National Crime Records Bureau reports an astonishing 83% rise in crimes against women from 2007 to 2016, with “cruelty by husband or his relatives” comprising 33% of that total. There’s a similar bent to statistics on rape, which admittedly mask the reality that most cases of sexual violence anywhere in the world go unreported. Still, as officially registered across India, the number of rape cases leaped almost 90% over the past few years (26% in 2013 alone) to 38,947 in 2016. Of these, in 36,859 instances (or 98%), the accused were known to the victims. This does not include countless other examples of husbands forcing themselves on their wives, because marital rape is not a crime. What all these different studies reveal is a nation of women rendered powerless by patriarchal superstructures, which purposefully leave them vulnerable to everyone else. Look at education, one of the towering failures of independent India since 1947. The national female literacy rate is just 65%, well below the international average of 79% (while China is at 82.7%). But these broad strokes mask a greater shame. States like Goa and Kerala are way ahead of China, but others like Bihar are amongst the worst in the world, hovering around 50%. Even worse is the virtual annihilation of female foetuses in many regions, in an extremely dangerous demographic tilt. In Maharashtra, there are 118 boy babies born for every 100 girls, in Haryana that ratio is 120:100. Again, this is not related to poverty, because the skewing is far worse in urban areas than in the countryside. As often happens with bewilderingly giant India, solutions to seemingly intractable problems can often be found in unlikely corners amongst overlooked people. In this instance, the rest of the country (and indeed the world) has very much to learn from minuscule Minicoy, the farthest-flung gem in the spectacularly beautiful Lakshadweep archipelago. It has been known as “the island of women” since antiquity, for its remarkable female-centred culture. Here, babies take their mother’s last names, and young men move to their mother-in-law’s home after marriage. Most of the men work on ships all across the world, but at home they never rank higher than second mate. Here is a middle-class, moderate Muslim society with high levels of education, an ideal gender ration, and no crime to speak of. We all remember when prime minister Narendra Modi galvanized the country with his promise to take every man and woman along the road to prosperity. In Minicoy, they’ve already done it.