Though the child gender ratio in India declined from 927 to 914––thanks to ultra-sound––the overall gender ratio has increased from 933 to 940. This increase can be attributed to better medical facilities for the adult women. But in Bihar both have shown decline. Thus if sonography is encouraging abortion the above-six girls/women are dying in greater number because of absence of better medicare and other related facilities.

Even Punjab (876 in 2001 to 893 now) and Haryana (877, a jump of 16 points) have shown improvement. Like Bihar it is Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir, where the overall gender ratio has fallen. Gujarat’s figure came down to 918 in 2011 from 920 in 2001 and 934 in 1991.

But even in Gujarat, along with Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Mizoram and Andaman and Nicobar Islands the child gender ratio showed an upward swing.

Ironically the decline in number of women came in the decade when they got more ‘empowered’. Among the first step the Nitish government took after coming to power in November 2005, was increase in the quota for women in rural and urban local bodies from 33 per cent to 50 per cent.

Census 2011 reflects that just a few administrative measures are not enough. The centrally-sponsored National Rural Health Mission and the state government’s own schemes have failed to have desired result. The need of the hour is a big social change and awareness.
If the child gender ratio (0-6 years) is falling the present government can not escape the blame as it has been in power for more than five years while Bihar had a nine-month spell of President’s Rule before that.
The negative growth will go a long way to dent the image of Bihar as the state had a relatively better gender ratio––956 in 1991. It would not be appropriate to compare the present decline with the fall between 1991 and 2001 (921) as just on the eve of 2001 Census––November 15, 2000––Jharkhand was carved out from Bihar. It took away half the size of Bihar and about one-fourth population. But the fall between 2001 and 2011 reflects a better picture of Bihar.

When the number of women voters outnumbered men in 2010 the media dubbed it a reflection of their empowerment. A closer analysis revealed something else. An election in Bihar in monsoon is bound to see more women voters’ turn out, obvious because of the huge seasonal migration of farm labours to Punjab, Haryana and west Uttar Pradesh, not to speak of other migrations. So in the words of a doctor posted in rural Bihar in many villages one would not get an adult male to kill snake.

In 1990s Viji Srinivasan made a study of women sharecroppers of north Bihar. How lakhs of male farm workers would move out to the north-western states by May last and would return by early November. The women-sharecroppers would do the entire farming work at home. Sometimes the male members of the family manage to lend helping hands at the time of harvesting in November as the reaping season in the north-western states ends a couple of weeks earlier. But it all depends on whether they get place in trains to travel back on time. If not it is left to the fairer gender to harvesting too.

So the truth is that the rise in women’s turnout in election has less to do with their empowerment but more to do with the land-reality in Bihar. The fall in overall gender ratio and child ratio are better indicators to their condition in Bihar. It is a wake-up call for Bihar.

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