I read a news report about a pregnant Mumbai housewife who had a miraculous

escape. While returning from a visit to her gynecologist, a cement mixer truck
struck her a glancing blow and knocked her into a drainage ditch. To her horror,
the truck followed her into the ditch, but came to a stop just inches above her
prone body.

A remarkable story, to be sure, but what interested me more was the reaction of
the truck driver and cleaner. Without even bothering to find out if the woman they
had knocked out was still alive, or in need of urgent assistance, they promptly
fled the scene. Their only concern was to escape from the law.

What is tragic and shameful, in the Indian context, is that this cowardice was
hardly an exceptional circumstance, but absolutely predictable and expected from
the Indian male. Whenever he finds himself in a dangerous situation, his
instinctive reaction is to save himself. The concept of women and children first
is totally alien to him. That is why, in a stampede situation at a temple or a
cinema hall on fire, the maximum casualties are usually among the women and
children. They are the ones who get trampled underfoot by panicked men, whose only
thought is to save themselves. It’s the same when a ferry capsizes. This is – and
should be viewed as – a shameful state of affairs, but the Indian male feels no
shame. He regards it as the natural order of things.

This peculiar attitude is the result of centuries of conditioning. Almost since

the dawn of Indian civilization, it has been drilled into the psyche of Indian men
that they belong to the superior sex. Pockets of urban India may now be very
gradually veering towards the notion of gender equality, but for the vast majority
of the Indian population, the age old concept of the man as the sole breadwinner;
and lord and master is widely prevalent.

I do not wish to convey the impression that the traditional Indian housewife is
oppressed; or that her condition is remotely comparable to their counterparts in
Saudi Arabia and Iran. They are relatively free to dress as they like; and go out
and interact socially with members of the opposite sex. But their role as service
provider to the temporal and sexual needs of the husband is rigidly defined. In
fact, it is so deeply ingrained in them that very few regard it as an injustice;
or express any desire for change. This has been the natural order of their
existence for generations; and they have come to accept it.

A major cause for male preference is the ignoble system of dowry, which is in
vogue even among “modern” affluent Indians. By law, it is prohibited, but this is
an eyewash, since it is prevalent among the lawmakers themselves. In its crudest
terms, dowry can be defined as the buying and selling of brides. A girl can rarely
expect to get a suitable husband unless her family to pay for her. In some parts
of the country, there are actually rate cards for prospective bridegrooms. Civil
servants command the highest price, followed by doctors, engineers and so on. That
is why a daughter is regarded as a financial burden from the day she is born. A
son, on the other hand, is a potential source of revenue; and highly prized.

This gender bias can also have lethal spin offs. Although not common, infanticide
of the newborn girl child has been practiced for generations, mostly in villages.
Now, ironically, medical technology has augmented this barbarous practice. Thanks
to sonography, the sex of the foetus can be determined at a fairly early stage. If
found to be female, some parents, even among the educated elite, have no
compunction about paying off the doctor to induce an abortion.

Thankfully, this trend is beginning to change for the better, although with
excruciating slowness. As more and more rural Indians migrate to urban areas; and
more women are entering the work force; parents are beginning to appreciate that
daughters can pay for themselves and, in fact, can be quite a joy.