Killing them softly

Jennie got an opportunity to speak on a particular topic. She asked me what subject to speak on. I told her to speak on female feoticide and so she started preparing for her first speech. We discussed one point that I had mentioned – tradition connected to religion and faith. She asked me how can this change?

Religious leaders can influence people more than education. If they say a particular thing is right, people believe. Most of the age-old rituals practiced in societies around the world were introduced by religious leaders thousands of years ago. They have never been questioned. If social evil can be taught through religious teachers and not through education it might work. In India the belief is that a son must be born in a family because only he can prepare the way of salvation when parents die. Only a son can do the last rites. This is why female feoticide is so rampant in some Indian societies. This opens up other problems too – disbalanced sex ratio, rape, abuse and so on.

Paradigm shift is a tough call specially when it comes to faith. People have blind faith and they just don’t want to apply their mind. I am appalled by the fact that even educated people fall into the trap. The whole idea of looking at things must change in order for change to happen.