In the 1990s, rural midwives in Bihar were quietly killing baby girls under pressure from families. Some confessed to dozens of infanticides. Dowry, caste, poverty β all conspired to make daughters disposable.
Thirty years later, one of those girls has returned β adopted, loved, and thriving β to meet the women who chose to save rather than kill.
This story, told through BBC Eyeβs The Midwifeβs Confession, is brutal, human, and profoundly moving.
What does it say about Indiaβs gender imbalance, social reform, and the moral grey zones of survival?
This thread is open for reflection. Please engage with care.
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This was an eye opening one for me. I have heard such stories indirectly through migrant Bihari laborers who used to live in my village, Aliabad, on the outskirts of Hyderabad. This was around mid to late 90s.
I have spent most of time in and around Hyderabad and Telangana. I went to school in Calicut, Kerala. Currently, I live in the States and it definitely gives a different perspective. Southern India is much better in all these aspects but we Southies are getting old before we actually get rich. We still have a lot to catchup to.
Thank you for your comment. It’s important we share these (sad) stories about South Asia to learn and retrospect.
Well it is and it isn’t. I feel the story needs to be shared to recognise the contribution of Anila Kumari. Social workers in India are often unrecognised/forgotten.
When Irom Sharmila stood for elections in 2017 after ending a 16 year death fast she barely got any votes.
Reliving the evils of Bihar in the 90`s is such a BBC thing to do. Outside cricket I rarely see them, if ever, have a positive slant on the country.
Attitudes are changing fast. Caste is very much present but caste discrimination laws are draconian to the point that they can be easily weaponised for misuse.
Sexism too, dowry harassment laws have ended up being terribly misused (the courts keep remarking about it).
Biased reporting contributes to poor law making turning the oppressed into the oppressor.
Surveys throw up strange dynamics nowadays, only the rich remain with their privilege.
True, I agree about BBC showing India almost always in negative manner. In fact, some Pakistani origin journalists at NPR pull the same tricks too. Nevertheless, we must embrace these criticisms (bad or good faith ones).
More reporting is good. Humans find it hard to give in to baser instincts under scrutiny. Skewed reporting or rehashed, biased need to get “the story” to satisfy an editorial slant is my objection. For instance, this could have very well been accompanied with the 81% drop in child marriage rate in Assam right next door. It is a huge win for young women who are far more likely to have greater control over their lives.
There are two significant factors in population increase (and avg life expectancy).
TFR increases ; Infant Mortality Rate decreases
deaths per 1,000 live births
India Infant Mortality Rate 2012:42.5 2022:25.2
SL Infant Mortality Rate 2012: 8.9 2022: 5.6
In SL low infant mortality is a big factor in avg life expectancy
See graph below
X.T.M: What do you think about the arrest of Ali Khan Mahmudabad over his Facebook posts?
“The question we must now ask is: Who is allowed to think in todayβs India?
If Muslim academics can be detained for Facebook posts, if Muslim soldiers can be slandered by ministers, if Muslim families can be evicted without trial, then this is not simply Islamophobia β it is a collapse of constitutional citizenship. It is a regime of suspicion, where identity becomes evidence and silence becomes survival.”
https://thewire.in/communalism/who-gets-to-think-in-india
π you were just asking for
Davesto be censored for using the word ‘taqiyya’. Someone very much like you engineered the arrest of Mahmudabad because idiotically anyone can, welcome to the misuse of law. It is appalling, thankfully there was tremendous support for him and legal protections ensured he was released.When you go to a paper which has a dedicated section of ‘communalism’ there is an editor there who is actively searching out stories he can write about issues like this. They will then be compiled into editorials which highlight and enhance the image of a deeply divided sectarian country.
Pretty much how confirmation bias works.
First of all, my problem was not simply with the use of the word “taqiyya”. Daves came across as an Islamophobic troll. Asking the moderator to step in hardly counts as censorship. The new policies on BP mean that people are supposed to use a certain level of decorum when commenting.
Secondly, comparing a blog on the internet to the actions of the Indian state is not a fair comparison. Ali Khan Mahmudabad is a respected professor of Political Science. The fact that he can be arrested for writing what he did shows that freedom of speech in India doesn’t really apply to Muslims. Not even his aristocratic background could protect him. The writers of the article in “The Wire” are themselves Muslim academics and they are expressing the predicament they find themselves in.
It’s quite predictable how you immediately dismiss “The Wire” as leftist or whatever. You don’t like the foreign media since you think it shows India in a bad light. You don’t like domestic “leftist” media since it shows India in a bad light. This criticism of the press is quite typical of the right wing globally.
Haven’t read up on the professor case yet, but sounds unacceptable. seems to be an example of selective enforcement of the stupid FIR system.
Nothing wrong with calling it out, problem is the self-serving extrapolation based on such cases that invites derision. Especially by folks ‘defending’ countries that have institutionalized discrimination in place.
Blame the messenger. Another typical right-wing move.
We’ve already seen above someone dismiss “The Wire” as being leftist.
If a similar case occurred in Pakistan, I wouldn’t defend it at all. India supposedly holds itself to higher standards even though Hindu Hriday Samrat is bent on doing to India what General Zia did to Pakistan.
General Zia never had a decade of 7% growth
Kind of besides the point isn’t it. China has had 2 decades of 10% growth with appalling human rights. Growth cannot excuse lack of personal freedoms. It is silly to defend the indefensible, there should be freedom to criticize and satirize as long as there is no incitement to violence. Religions too are unable to reform if criticism is not allowed.
India has a free speech problem and especially an internet related issue in that anyone reading/watching widely disseminated information can choose to register a case with any police station in the country. Given the breadth and width of the country this results in stupid things like cases registered in Assam against a comedy show in Mumbai(they even sent a team). In the case of Mahmudabad, he was close enough to the place of filing and was able to be arrested by the police before he could counter it.
This isn’t an action of the govt as such, more a problem with the judicial system, not just Muslims, but comedians too have the same issue (with no religion involved), a BJP spokesperson also got in trouble in a similar manner a few years ago (some 10 cases across the country for a televised offence).
It’s a problem, the politicians aren’t inclined to fix it and law issues are so removed from the electorate that I’m not keeping my fingers crossed.
As to my own right or left wingedness. These are archaic labels, views don’t fall on a linear line.Is reporting that covid had animal origin when it was from a lab right or left wing?
Everyone has their biases, the question is how much of an effort do you make to prevent them from overruling your objectivity.
There is a reason media trust is at the low it is, objective reporting is really at it’s nadir.
How objective do you feel you have been in these discussions?
Agreed that stupid cases are filed all over India. But you can’t honestly think that Ali Khan’s ancestry and his status as a prominent Muslim don’t have something to do with this. People (including “Swarajya” magazine) have made the connection that his grandfather was a major proponent of Pakistan. Obviously, that should have nothing to do with any reading of Ali’s views. He is an Indian citizen and as far as I read of his controversial social media posts, he didn’t say anything positive about Pakistan either. But there is a certain animus against him for being Muslim and especially a Muslim from an extremely wealthy and aristocratic family.
I don’t really care about your political views. After all you are a rando on the internet. Just pointing out that criticizing domestic and foreign press is a right wing not a left wing move.
I have never claimed objectivity. No one can be absolutely objective. Also, most of our discussion occurred during the “war” and in such a situation, it is only natural for most people to defend their own country.
What is the objective truth in this matter. Mr Mahmudabad (as a prominent Muslim) was targeted by an ambitions woman trying to score political points in her local haryana sector.
Muslims will naturally have fear that this can repeat at any instance and will probably choose silence as there is only a possible downside.
Comedians have a fear that any joke can do the same, however with the risk comes notoriety and fame, so the incentivization works both ways and they are far more inclined to test the line.
Hindus too have their fears, any criticism of Islam lands them with being booked under the same laws, there are fewer political points to score and so the provocation has to be more substantial for this to occur.
There isn’t an all arching plot at play here, perversely the law that is being misused is section 196, “It prohibits actions that promote enmity, hatred, or disharmony between different groups”.
This can be reported sensibly without either bringing in Mr Mahmudabads heritage or a tirade against the BJP and Modi.
Agreed that many other people have been caught under the same laws. But there is a pattern when it comes to who is silenced. Right wing figures who have said much worse things are walking around freely. The guy who called Colonel Qureshi a “sister of terrorists” hasn’t been arrested.
Ali Khan’s heritage is unfortunately relevant. Swarajya wrote a whole screed about Raja Sahab and about how the Congress party let the Mahmudabad family get their properties back. His treatment sends the message that not even the most aristocratic upper-class Muslim is safe. What chance do poor lower-class Muslims have?
The pattern lies in the eye of the beholder. If you pay lip service to the other victims and concentrate on Muslims, then you are selectively connecting the dots and screaming “conspiracy.”
FWIW In the case of Vijay Shah (Colonel Qureshi), the court itself took up the case (under Section 196). It is also clear that his intent was not to insult the Colonel, but did so due to his prejudice towards clubbing Muslims together (a tendency you seem to share). He has issued multiple public apologies but is in exactly the same position as Mr. Mahmudabad.
Mr. Mahmudabadβs heritage was restored through the courts, upholding the secular nature of the Indian Constitution. Given the nature of the case, it could very well have gone the other way. This outcome upset the writers of Swarajya magazine, who vent about it online. A concerned Indian could similarly use Section 196 to file an FIR against them and waste everyoneβs time.
It seems that you feel a kind of imaginary shared pain and angst. With 200 million Indian Muslims, there will inevitably be many anecdotes, and The Wire’s communal section will do its best to highlight all of them, Swarajya will ignore or justify them, media too has turned into social media echo chambers.
Many Indians, myself included, were pretty upset and appalled by Mr. Mahmudabadβs arrest, having you selectively harp about it though, is just annoying.
“His intent was not to insult the Colonel”: I mean people’s definitions of insult may vary but I would certainly find being called the “sister of terrorists” pretty insulting. Maybe you don’t.
You don’t seem to realize that many Pakistanis feel that India’s Muslims are our brothers and sisters. Some of us actually have relatives still living in India. Certainly the ill-treatment of Indian Muslims only reinforces the good sense of the Two Nation Theory. If we didn’t have a Muslim majority country of our own, we too would be suffering under the Hindu yoke. So much for secularism!
You seem to have some very negative feelings about “The Wire”. As far as I’m concerned, it and “Scroll.in” are really striving hard to keep a liberal India alive. I wish there were such journalistic platforms in Pakistan.
oh please, you are cherrypicking cases and instances with a clear agenda. And anybody who challenges your selective interpretation is supposedly a ‘hindutva’ or a ‘troll’. …doth protest too much…
The 90s were over 25 years ago.
Truth is right now Bihar has a higher HDI than the entirety of Pakistan as well as its richest state of Punjab.
great point
Mr. Javed Akhtar has now invented a new SOB story about why he and his wife were denied flats for being Muslim
https://x.com/erbmjha/status/1928446547500417442
As expected, it’s all Pakistan’s fault LOL.
This encapsulates why Indians have an absolute victim mentality, continue to harbor centuries old grudges as if they happened yesterday, actively be racist/bigoted against millions of people, and justify mass discrimination based on some perceived slight.
And this is not even getting into the nitty gritty of these types of arguments, which are almost always based on falsehood.
The entire society is fast descending into delulu land
Mumbai housing societies are annoying for everybody. The Jains and Marwadis keep the non vegetarians out. The Parses who have the best land keep everybody out. The Marathi’s have shifted from being anti south to anti muslim to anti north. The media lasers in whenever a muslim says he cannot buy. The prejudice is mostly mixed with economics, creating exclusivity enables higher real estate pricing. Given the paucity of land collective turf wars have very messy dynamics.
The issue is not whether Hindu/Jain housing societies don’t want to allow Muslims to settle among them. The issue is about Javed Akhtar inventing a SOB story 20 years after the fact, blaming Pakistanis for his troubles instead of his own countrymen, using the current climate to score some brownie points, all the while ignorantly whitewashing this type of discrimination that is not based on different dietary habits but based on some past grievance – which he himself imagined up.
It points to a deeper malaise festering within Indian society at large, where any hate against Pakistan sells and it doesnt even have to be anything real but something completely cooked up. Khilji killed Hindus 800 years ago? Pakistan is to blame. Aurangzeb imposed jizya 350 years ago? Pakistan is to blame. Gandhi went on hunger strike? That Pakistan lover, shoot him.
What can I say, Mr Akhtar’s story sounds idiotic to me too. Why is one mans story a festering malice in society?
It comes back to the same point I have been trying to make in different ways. If you focus on media anecdotes, someone’s interview, twitter point scoring and view this through your own bias prism you will end up seeing a distorted version of reality.
Do you think the average Indian even knows or remembers who Khilji is? That anyone really remembers Gandhi’s last fast.
People in India really only blame Pakistan for the terror attacks. They etch themselves on memory, I can tell you when Mumbai was attacked, when Parliment was attacked, the Kargil war. This is when Pakistan intrudes on the collective Indian conscience, (and when we lose cricket).
The average person is any country is mostly stupid and gullible. He is religious, follows structure and culture, but he is not ideological.
Ideology is the forte of the elite, the educated and the above average IQ. These people determine the direction of any society through power, by promoting and preventing certain narratives. So whenever I talk about society, I mostly blame the elite and not the average person, although the average person is the one who will usually be the primary aggressor, just like the pawn that moves & clashes first on the chessboard.
The upper & developing classes of India have found a good way to unite disparate groups of Hindus, who otherwise would have deeper divisions within themselves. Nothing unites better than an external foe, and nothing motivates better than imaginary wounds of the past. This foe is the Indian Muslim, any Muslim, but even better it is Pakistan which is the ideological arch nemesis. History is invented, re-calibrated, embellished and exaggerated to pit Hindus against Muslims, one ‘civilization’ against the other. Education is revised, media is controlled to push this sole narrative, to radicalize the gullible masses who do not have the faculty to critically examine what is happening.
The result is basically a population where average person is calling for desecrating the tomb of Aurangzeb after watching a Bollywood (fictional) movie, 300+ years after his death, when even the Marathas he fought with did not do so.
The result is basically a critcal mass of people online giving phull sapport for a certain country in the ME committing genocide and celebrating deaths of children just because they are Muslim.
Even the liberal anti establishment groups have lost the ability to question, because this dehumanization is almost complete.
There are those opportunists who want to make hay while the sun is shining. Javed Akhtar seems to be one of those, he isn’t stupid, he knows what is selling right now and he is cashing in.
This is the key difference between a democracy and an autocracy. In a democracy the leadership has to address the daily issues, polarisation and ideology only works for a while. If the BJP were embroiled in corruption scandals or the Congress actually elect a competent leader they would quickly come to power. For e.g after the temple was built the BJP lost in Ayodhya.
Israel isn’t Voldemort, you can say the name. Indians historically tend to be quite sympathetic to the Palestinian cause in general. The online mood of rage baiting is influenced both by the algorithm and the reaction it elicits. There is also a pragmatic govt shift, along with the gulf states.
Here is a good write up on it.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2024/11/18/walking-a-tightrope-india-and-the-palestine-question/
I really don’t get what Javed Akhtar has to sell to anybody, he is much loved, has had a stellar career and his kids are very successful.
The Hindu Muslim polarization isn’t new in India, nor is it more menacing. Population adjusted religious violence is far lower and on a steady decline.
What you are witnessing is the far greater accessibility of the internet where the masses happily voices their baser feelings online in anonymity, encouraged heavily by social media algos.
Agreed that Indians definitely have a psychological problem when it comes to Pakistan. When xperia says “People in India only really blame Pakistan for terror attacks” he is definitely underplaying or whitewashing the issue.
Pakistan is central to Indian election rhetoric in a way that India is certainly not to Pakistani election rhetoric. Hindu Hriday Samrat repeatedly says that a vote for the opposition is a vote for Pakistan. Muslims (and even the opposition) are constantly told to “Go to Pakistan”. The very existence of Pakistan is seen as.a “vivisection” of “Bharat Mata”.
There is a deep insecurity about the period of Muslim rule as reflected in Hindu Hriday Samrat’s comments about “1000 years of colonialism”. Never mind that the Mughal Empire cannot be considered colonialism in the technical sense since they were not sending India’s resources back “home” to Samarkand and Bukhara.
In contrast, the average Pakistani really doesn’t care about India. Even politicians focus on Kashmir and on the need to defend ourselves against India’s aggressive posturing.
As for Javed Akhtar: perhaps some members of the Indian Muslim minority feel the need to prove themselves more loyal than the king when it comes to attacking Pakistan. I was at the Faiz Festival a few years ago when he made another controversial anti-Pakistan remark (I’ve forgotten what exactly it was). That time, people were even more upset since he had said anti-Pakistan things while on Pakistani soil and after he had been lauded and feted. But of course he knows his audience. He has to go back and live in a Hindu majority country so he needs to insult Pakistan.
Remind me again when was it you actually had an election?
Parliamentary elections were held in February 2024.
If your point is that Pakistan’s election results are managed by the Army or the “establishment”, that’s obviously true and a different discussion.
Anyway, that doesn’t take away from the point that Indian political parties make Pakistan central to their campaign rhetoric in a way that India has never been central to Pakistani campaign rhetoric.
inflated sense of self-importance. A few random sentences in speeches don’t make terroristan ‘central’ to any campaign. But hey, whatever floats your boat.
It is a well established principle that the virtue signaller is the worst offender. I’ve been arguing events in India by Indians to you (
kabir) andQureshifor days now. It looks like there is nothing to be gained by pointing out your hypocrisy.What hypocrisy? You asked a very dumb (or very disingenuous) question. “When was it you actually had an election?” You know just as well as anyone that Pakistan holds parliamentary elections. Imran Khan came to power in a parliamentary election in 2018. Shahbaz Sharif came to power in a parliamentary election in 2024.
Yes, these election results are “managed”. Yes we have a “hybrid” system. All that can be discussed. But to pretend that there are no elections in Pakistan is disingenuous at best.
π you now have an unenviable choice. Either you are too stupid to understand the hypocrisy I am pointing out or your english is not good enough. Hint: your elections don’t feature.
Is good English so important?
Not at all. He’s just had form insulting everyone else’s (mine included), just a little petty payback. Nothing to see here officer. π
A day after Subramanian Swamy accepted 5 jets were down in a Hindi interview, Indian CDS Gen Chauhan accepts jet losses in the recent encounter to Bloomberg.
What’s more he accepted that the Indian planes did not fly after May 6-7 and were grounded, which demonstrates the thrashing was pretty bad.
As I said, the truth is trickling out now.. couple of weeks ago, everyone from Honey Singh to Ajit Doval were bashing me for repeating falsehoods, even MA Jinnah came out of the grave to support India. But the reality dawns sooner or later.
Honey Singh, Ajit Doval and MA Jinnah are all the same person. The guy has multiple personality disorder.
Using Quaid-e-Azam’s name to troll Pakistanis was really a new low.
I know, just by the way he posts π
Is BP just an Indo-Pak battleground?
Unfortunately, that seems to be what sells.
I’ve stopped following this thread and flame wars but if people want me to moderate.
Naah, the reality is different.
No amount of cope by using random interviews by random people changes the facts.
The thrashing was pretty bad but on the Pak side.
PAF were bombed on the 10th, which cannot be denied as is the standard Pakistani way as you have video evidence, satellite imagery as well as public admission of the dead PAF personnel, including a squadron leader (videos and images of his funeral are plastered all over social media).
All of those hits were done with planes. Heck, Bholari was done in plain daylight after which Pak went crying to Trump.
It is Pak who is in denial about Operation Baniyan Chaddi as there is zero evidence of any hits. Just a face saver for the awaam before declaring victory.
The hits on the terrorist hideouts on the 7th and on the PAF bases on the 10th have video evidence shot by many of the Pak awaam as they scream “Ya Allah Mada”, “Ya Allah Khair” etc. Pakistan’s “claims” all rest on random interviews.
That’s why the desperate attempt to fake evidence as seen on social media where hits on Syria and Ukraine are being attempted to pass off as Operation Chadi Baniyan.
[…] S Qureishi on Open Thread: From Murder to Mercy β The Midwives of Bihar […]
The leader of the fourth largest economy, PM Modi ji has not been invited to the G7 summit after attending it continuously for the past 6 years.
It seems the western allies are dropping India after realizing recently that they are incapable of standing upto China.
India has been isolated and now facing the prospect of a two front war if it tries any new adventure in Pakistan. It seems like holding Kashmir is proving to be very expensive or India.
choti choti khushiyan in a ‘frog in the well’ echo chamber. A microcosm of the Ind-Pak reality. Not-India celebrating the occasional minor setback to India as if it was Diwali-Eid-Nowruz all in one go.
it’s in Canada – India and Canada have poor relations..