Thanks to Aamir Khan’s show ‘Satyamev Jayate’, the spirited discussions and even outrage have not stopped since Sunday morning when the inaugural episode on female infanticide was first telecast. While Khan himself met Rajastan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot to petition his government to act against the social menace, the Madhya Pradesh government on Wednesday terminated the license of 65 Medical Termination of Pregnancy centres in order to check the Sex Determination Test (SDT). This is only the beginning of the ‘impact’ stories.
Meanwhile, journalist and economist Rupa Subramanya, in an article published on the Wall Street Journal website, argued that contrary to popular beliefs about Islam being anti-women, the sex ratio among Muslims is better than any other religious group in the country. Subramanya writes: “An interesting twist to the sex selection saga is that India’s Muslims have close to normal sex ratios, not nearly as skewed as the population at large or upper-caste Hindus in particular. According to the most recent data that’s been analyzed from the 2001 census, the sex ratio among Hindus, who account for almost four-fifths of the population, was 931. The comparable ratio for Muslims, who make up less than 15% of the population, was 936.”