Features & Articles

Gender Gaps among Muslims

Naseruddin
Lucknow

The census of 2001 is significant in the sense that for the first time in India the population data was also collected on the bases of religion. This has exploded several myths and revealed several new facts of Muslim society.

One of the myths till the Census 2001 data came out was that Muslims are not plagued with the bane of female foeticide.

According to 2001 Census, Muslims constitute around 13.4% of our country’s population that comes to around 13 crore, 81 lakh and 28 thousand Muslim heads. Out of this Males constitute around 7,13,74,134 while the number of Muslim is less than men by 45,60,028. Where are these Muslim women? Where have they vanished? It is like getting up one fine morning and finding out that the whole population of Lucknow and Mathura has vanished. What would happen in such a situation? Will the life go on as usual or will there be panic?

Unfortunately, there is no reaction from any quarter over vanishing of such large number of Muslim women. There was time when certain tribes in Arab society used to treat the birth of a female child as a bad omen and female infanticide was quite common. But then 1400 years back Islam prohibited this practice.

It is clear by now that like other religious communities several Muslim families too prefer birth of a male child to a female child. In Muslim dominated cities of Uttar Pradesh like Bundelkhand, Banda, Sharanpur, the gender ratio has been becoming more and more adverse against Muslim women.

UP is one of the states, which has significant Muslim population in the country. In this state, Muslims constitute around 18.5% of the total population. In absolute terms, the Muslim population in UP stands at around 3,740,158. The difference between Male and female population here is around 13.16 lakh. It implies that UP alone contributes 29 per cent to the overall countrywide gender gap plaguing Muslims.

Aligarh, a Muslim dominated prominent city of UP has gender ratio of 883 women per 1000 men. The capital city Lucknow, the 34000 Muslim women have gone “missing”. The number of “mission” Muslim women is 77000 in Saharanpur, 74000 in Mujaffar Nagar, 50,000 in Bijnore and 40,000 in Kanpur.

As this writer sought reaction of two prominent Muslim religious leaders, Darul Ulum Nadvatul Ulma (Nadva), made it clear in a fatwa, “Shariat does not allow to find out the gender of a yet to be born child. This is against the religious laws.” Maulana Masood Hasan Hasani of Darul Ifta Nadva explains, “Those who are indulging in such practices are anti-Islam. Even the doctors who is aiding it would also have to share the blame as it is through him or her that this act is carried out.”

Ironically, the biggest threat to the Muslim women in terms of gender discrimination is rocking the “well-to-do” and so called progressive Muslim families living in major cities. Even doctors are aiding them without any fear or inhibitions openly as they can make big bucks in this business. It is clear that economic prosperity is not helping in setting this imbalance right. Some of the most affluent regions of Western Uttar Pradesh and Punjab continue to witness high incidence of foeticide.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Lucknow)

(Charkha Features)

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