The Tragedy Of Female Infanticides With Reference To The Books ‘Disappearing Daughters’ By Gita Aravamudan And ‘Witness The Night’ By Kishwar Desai
Ann Mary Kuriachan, BBA LLB, Symbiosis Law School Hyderabad.
ABSTRACT
This work analyses the tragedy of female infanticides with reference to the book ‘disappearing daughters’ by Gita Aravamudan and ‘witness the night’ by Kishwar Desai. Both these books reveal the terrible story of patriarchal beliefs, marginalized women who have no right on their bodies, and the involvement of merciless and insensitive medical and societal systems. The intense social pressures drive the woman to terminate the life that she has natured in her womb. These books deal with many horrific social issues that existed and still exist in India. In the book disappearing daughters, the author describes horrifying findings made by men and women with a common objective of exterminating women from the face of the earth. The author reveals the imperatives of investigative reporting. Whereas the book by Kishwar Desai broadly discusses the seamlessly weaving themes of sexism, female infanticide, and gender discrimination through a fictitious manner. With reference to both these books and various other articles, the researcher analyses the backdrop of this particular social issue-female foeticides and infanticides, its causes and effects, measures that had been taken to prevent this, and the current scenario of this issue in India.
Keywords: Female foeticide, infanticide, gender imbalance, patriarchy, son-preference, etc.
