Dwindling Sex Ratio in Jammu & Kashmir: A Case Study

The state of Jammu and Kashmir stood as an example, holding gender and cultural equality, which kept women with high esteem and little chances of their elimination. But the neighboring impacts of Punjab and Haryana specifically spread its paws to our state as well. There were times when the fairer sex was the most exploited lot. And those dark clouds have still not vanished away.  Their capabilities were never applauded, they were never shouldered responsibilities, and they were not entrusted with tasks that men would usually do, they were denied access to education, and their opportunities were usually curtailed. And they were just expected to follow certain specific cultural norms that have been their lot since the life of Nethanderal human beings. Contrary to the traditional means of bearing daughters after daughters just to have the required number of sons, the modern technology has facilitated sacrifice of unborn daughters. And the technological ones are playing the villains. The pre-natal diagnosis doesn’t allow the girl child to see the light of the world. With the ongoing velocity of fertility transition, couples are rather forced to achieve a desired sex composition of children. Women’s empowerment in India still has a long way to go even when women have come out of their cocoons and proved their worth. Though India is rising, but so is gender and space inequality. Along with rise in population size, there is evidence of maleness in sex ratio in general as well as in child sex ratio in particular . The 2011 census has exposed that all districts of the Valley has fewer than 900 girls for every 1,000 boys in the “below six years” category. The overall gender ratio in the state for this age group has dwindled from 941 in 2001 to 859 in 2011. This lowering sex ratio over the last few decades reveals a continuing imbalance in the gender relations and has restated the fact that there is a stark gender disparity at the very basic levels, starting at birth. The sharp decline in female sex ratios over the years suggests that female foeticide and infanticide might be primarily responsible for this phenomenon followed by general neglect of the girl child. Gender differentials are not controlled by individuals. Moreover, gender differentials are not poverty-bound; instead they are wide-spread among all income and rural-urban groups. This report is expected to provide vital clues for policy makers to decide on emerging areas for research on declining child sex ratio in Jammu & Kashmir.