India's Union Minister for Women and Child Development announced her government's plans to take on the brutal murder of baby girls - before or after their birth.

Renuka Chowdhury was quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying: "What we are saying to the people is have your children, don't kill them. And if you don't want a girl child, leave her to us," adding that the government planned to set up a centre in each regional district.

"We will bring up the children. But don't kill them because there really is a crisis situation," she said.

The crisis situation is the lopsided male-female ratio that has emerged in a couple of Indian states, which has subsequently led to deviant social situations such as polyandry, forced trafficking of women and bride trading.

Consider this. A number of districts in India report 800 girls born for every 1,000 boys. Although tests to establish the foetus' gender are officially illegal, there has, according to agency reports, been only one doctor convicted since the law was passed more than 10 years ago.

Chowdhury's scheme is not a first in India. It was first introduced in 1992 in the southern state of Tamil Nadu to arrest the increasing rates of female infanticide. Called the "cradle baby scheme" women were told to abandon their daughters in government centres that had ready-to-take cradles.

The scheme definitely did bring down the rate of female infanticide. Except that now women weren't going the whole nine months and delivering the unwanted girl, but aborting as soon as the gender was discovered.

Active efforts from the establishment are surely the result of combating the negative publicity that has filled up the international press and smeared the India Shining campaign. It was quite a shocker to discover about 400 body parts of newborn babies and foetuses of girls buried behind a missionary hospital in the state of Madhya Pradesh. "It is a matter of international and national shame for us that India, with a growth of nine per cent, still kills its daughters," Chowdhury said at the time.

Right direction

Supporters claim that the scheme is a step in the right direction towards saving lives. The problem really isn't in finding a solution of prevention. It's a desperate situation of changing society's attitude towards its girls.

By setting up alternatives for parents, the message is still one that screams: Give up your girls. Even if the government "promises" to look after them. Given the state of state-funded primary education it doesn't take a wild imagination to envision the kind of future that awaits groups of institutionalised girls left behind because of a certain lacking.

Working on a detailed feature on this issue, a number of factors emerged for parents still preferring boys to girls. While some have blamed it on religious requirements, the fact is that in today's society most parents interviewed by activists on the field have attributed it more to economics. Girls are born with the burden of dowry. Boys are a means to social security in the twilight years of a couple.

The positive of Chowdhury's public statement is that India is clearly not in denial anymore. Acknowledging the need for our girls is half the battle won. Perhaps the minister should look into schemes that encourage families to have their girls, educate them, empower them and depend on them. Though the government single-handedly cannot change cultural attitudes it can certainly make it financially attractive to families to raise their girls.

Chowdhury and India together would do better to stop teaching Indians not to kill their girls. And start teaching them to love them.

Vinita Bharadwaj is an independent writer based in Dubai.