Dowry is responsible for girl child deaths

As a country, we are ashamed on skewed sex ration in our society. This shows how we think as a society. We Indians traditionally have been praising our culture and values. I disagree to this when it comes to question of girl child deaths. I have seen these trends in states like Haryana, Punjab, Delhi, Rajsthan, UP, Bihar etc. I feel it is spread across India. No one should be surprised that Hindu values clearly guides that a place where girls are not graced, that place is considered as ill fated. There are millions of goddess in Hindu religion. So what has forced Hindu society to go against religion to kill girl child. I believe its dowry which has pushed values in back seat. Every girl child means more responsibilities for family, more money going away and a boy child means a carefree life and money coming in. If we bring in security for girls in society and no dowry, then people will have no reason to kill girl child. There is of course a notion that boys are successor of family. There is no easy solution to that issue. Now advocating no dowry, I would like to put what I think origin of dowry as a social process. Few decades back, normal age for marriage was 15 to 20 years. In that age, hardly anyone earns. So as a process, parents from both families used to contribute towards gifts to new wed couple so that they can start their life with ease. No time has changed. Marriage age is shifted to beyond 25. Most of the boys are earning at this age and now with growing working women culture, I don't see any reason why we should continue with this tradition. There is no value add now. So if as a youngster, we understand this, then we can start change instead of following the norms blindly. This will change so many things in society and we will feel proud in our old age when we will tell to our children and grand children how we changed social ill practices as we now talk about swami Vivekananda. I feel proud of being an Indian and I am very happy that I belong to generation that is willing to do good.