Welcome Nargis
As you see the first light of your life, many TV channels were busy showing public-reaction to world's burgeoning population that crossed 7,000,000,000th mark and India's population crossing 120,000,000,000. The so-called public-reactions were cultivated by no other than the same media people - apprehensions about overcrowding, inability of the earth to sustain so many hungry mouths and so on so forth. Do not get disheartened, baby; the Malthusians are lying again. Surely there is enough food. Indian food-grain production now stands at 500 grams/day per head for all the people of the country; and at the world level it is even more. When the symbolic 6 billionth baby was born in 1999 world food-grain production could give each person 313 kilos per year, and now, after the birth of 7 billionth person world can provide each with 320 kilos per year. So you see that food-grain production is increasing faster than population growth and so was the case for the last 50 years.
Of course you will understand, when you grow up, that statistical per head availability has nothing to do with actual per head availability. There is a thing called inequality. And it is on the rise. As India is shining more and more, that inequality thing is also getting bigger and bigger. So on one side, in your state of U.P. there is the grand budh international F1 racing circuit which took many billions of rupees to build and for that purpose hundreds of hectares of land was acquired displacing hundreds and on the other hand you may hear the cries and agonies of the poor; poverty induced suicides are not uncommon in your state, one such ghastly event took place in February last when a father, a mother and two daughters together consumed poison. But hey baby, cast aside such nasty things; you just missed the F1 even just for a day. Oh, what a sensational noise those racing cars made! Your father surely would not think of buying F1 event tickets because each ticket cost thousands of rupees, the priciest ticket costs, well, does your father earn more than that in a year, `35,000? But then, you can watch such events in future in the TV. And when you grow up, if your father can take you to a tour to Delhi, do not miss the chance to see that F1 stadium from outside; and of course the grand park recently inaugurated in Noida by behenji ostensibly to display Dalit Pride. That will be great - the 7,000,000,000th baby in the park that did cost the govt `7,000,000,000!
But why on the earth your parents opted for this name, "Nargis"? Do they not know that in India naam se majhab ka pata chal jata hai! Do they not know what being a Muslim in India means? The police may smell 'terrorism' in your name! But indeed you may quote Shakespeare when you grow up and say what is in a name. You may cite as proof the name given to the F1 circuit - budh international; you may even find out that the day chosen for 5-consecutive atom bomb tests by the BJP govt of India was a budh purnima and the code was 'Buddha has laughed'! Alas Buddha - you abandoned princely wealth to lead a simple life, you talked of Ahimsa. And how your name is being used in India!
We know that as a girl you have already crossed the first hurdle, the hurdle of female-foeticide-female-infanticide. In your state, UP, there are only 899 girl children per 1000 boy children now in the 0-6 age group now; 10 years before there were 916 girls per 1000 boys. So you may say that while 10 years before 8.5% of the girls were never shown the light of the earth, now 9.1% of the girls are not allowed to be born. Your district Lucknow is more notorious; perhaps the figure there is so horrid that the print media ducked it. And lo - the number of Ultra-Sound machines in U.P. that can determine foetus-sex rose from 400 in 2001 to about 4,000 now! If you look at India as a whole then the figure would be a bit less cruel: there were 927 girls per 1000 boys in 2001 and in 2011 the figure dropped to 914 girls per 1000 boys. Well, days are becoming more and more cruel for girls, assaults on females are increasing. There is a village named Sihali in Barabanki district, the district adjacent to your Lucknow, a 16 year old Dalit girl was publicly molested. Drabbed in shame the girl self-immolated and was admitted in hospital with 60% burn. Finally the culprit was booked by police on September 2, though he was not given the charge of forcing to suicide. Then see: Lucknow, Oct 7: A woman poisoned her five minor children and then took her own life in Uttar Pradesh's Banda district ... a suicide note has been recovered from the house ... Vimla has blamed her police husband's drinking habits and constant beating as the reason for her extreme step. How tough the situation is! You have years of fight ahead. But do not get panic; you will get a lot of friends by your side in this fight.
Now, we do not know what kind of house will shelter you when you go home. Does your father have a pucca house? Chances are there, though less than 40% of rural houses in Lucknow district can be called 'permanent' as a 2008 govt report says. The newspapers said your father is a farmer. But more than 90% of holdings in Lucknow district have less than half hectare land! Per hectare food-grain production has been stagnating since 1999. Surprisingly, nearly two third of the rural households still has to use firewood for cooking!
With hundreds of hectares of agricultural land being converted to land for housing, commerce etc every year, Lucknow is now the biggest city in U.P. surpassing Kanpur. Lucknow is the newest IT destination in U.P. - also Lucknow boasts also of having nearly 50% of its population under the official poverty line, more than 49% got place in the BPL list as the 2008 report says.
Well, things look grey, but do not feel down. Do not think that this unfair and unjust reality is there to stay for ever, though pundits proclaimed the "End of History" some 20 years back. The propelling forces of history, forces of change, changing society, the workers and the toiling people, are trying to regroup again after their great defeat. At present they are in the stage of what you may call practice matches. In many of such matches they are succumbing facing far superior enemy forces. But they are not giving up. They are preparing themselves through their factory level fights, through their endeavour to unite their forces. When the world was waiting for its seven-billionth citizen to be born, at that very time workers in many corners of the world were busy in their fights. The time you were born, if you look at places only around Delhi, workers of Moser-Baer in that same Noida of F1 fame were in their strike action and workers of Maruti-Suzuki at Gurgaon were regrouping and discussing what to do next during the end phase of their strike battle. Workers and other toiling people are on the move. And they do not target only issues like economic inequality and exploitation, their focus include gender inequality and oppression, the horrible caste system, religious communalism and also exploitation of Nature too. These workers are there by your side. Surely this world will be a more liveable and lovable place for you in future. Cheer up baby!
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