Several e-mails received during the last few days began with the sentence - “Christmas is round the corner”. Indeed it is - at this time, year after year! But over a 100 million girl babies world-wide never got a chance to turn that corner. Foeticides, infanticides, newborn neglect and abandonment deprived them of their lives. Over 80% of these babies were from China and India[1]. The British medical journal Lancet estimated that 10 million female babies were aborted in the last 2 decades in our country. It also reported that pre-natal sex selection causes the loss of 500,000 girls each year in India. While reports of violence and murder would make for uncomfortable reading, do these mass murders of girls over the last few decades make us shrink and squirm with horror and shame? It is only fitting that at Christmas time when we celebrate the birth of a child who grew to be our Savior, we take time to consider the fate of millions of girl babies and the loss to the world by their untimely ends. Who knows how many potential Mother Teresas, Medha Patkars, Indira Nooyis, Kalpana Chawlas and Dr. Mary Vargheses have thus been killed?
Christmas, over the years, has become a time of celebrations within the comfortable confines of our families, friends and church groups, with nice mushy, “Christmassy” feelings that broadly include peace and goodwill towards the people we know. Well captured by the words of a popular song – “in the air there’s a feeling of Christmas”. It is time, though, that our usual celebrations are disturbed and soured by this and similar statistics! The fact that the child sex ratio (914 girls for every 1000 boys[2]) has dropped to its lowest level since independence should, perhaps, influence the way we celebrate Christmas this year. Unfortunately the church has not been very different from the rest of society in the way we value our girls, which is possibly why we have not been effective in our role as agents of transformation and change, in this area.
If this trend goes on unchecked there could be fearful and terrible consequences for the future. Several parts of India would have a shortage of women by as much as 12 to 15% over the next two decades. Already in Haryana, brides are illegally procured from poorer states like West Bengal and Assam. Crimes like rape, molestation and various kinds of violence against women would increase. The practice of polyandry – men from a family sharing the same wife may make the journey from the pages of the Mahabharata to the Hindustan Times. Kidnapping and trafficking of girls – viewed merely as commodities would increase. As a university mission, we need to sensitise our students on the various issues of the day and teach about God’s mind on these matters.
It is gratifying that some of us are already engaged through SALT Initiatives in a campaign titled “Let Her Live”. We need more of us, as a community, to be engaged in this effort and in attempting to address other issues of our time. We need to constantly advocate and affirm the Biblical teaching of human worth that stems from our being made in God’s image. Jesus demonstrated this in the way he specially affirmed women at a time when the traditional rabbis despised them. He affirmed equally the worth of children, Samaritans, tax-collectors, drunkards, prostitutes and other “sinners”. The Bible also declares the sanctity of life right from the time of conception. David asserts this so wonderfully in Psalm 139 – “you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb”. This truth is well stated in the catechism of the Catholic Church - “human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of its existence, a human being must be recognised as having the rights of a person” - irrespective of her sex, caste, nationality or social standing.
It is also widely recognised that laws alone are not enough. Sheila Dixit, Chief Minister of Delhi and Varsha Joshi, Director, Census Operations both emphasise the need for wholesale change in the mindsets of people to turn the tide in this issue. Mother Teresa said “if we can accept that a mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?” The command to make disciples was not given just to populate heaven – but to transform and renew people’s attitudes, mindsets and value systems with the saving and transforming grace from Jesus, while on earth. That is why Jesus came into this world – not that we may only celebrate by eating cakes at Christmas but re-calibrate a broken and painful humanity through our words and example. Let us take to heart the words of the writer of Proverbs 24 to “rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering towards slaughter. But if you say, ‘but we knew nothing about this,’ does not who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not He who guards your life know it? Will He not repay according to what He has done?”
May these issues and others like these engage our minds and lives so that we demonstrate the message of Christmas through meaningful action, all through the year. Wishing you and your families a reflective and meaningful Christmas time and a fulfilling year ahead.
Cherian Thomas
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