Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday launched the ‘Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao’ (BBBP) programme here saying it was our collective responsibility to save the girls and educate them, dubbing female foeticide as a mental illness.
The national programme was launched here in the State, which has one of the lowest sex ratio in the country and where female foeticide was rampant in recent years. In his emotional speech, Modi slammed doctors indulging in female foeticide, saying their sin was a betrayal against society.
“We cannot call ourselves citizens of 21st century by practising such a crime and we were by our mindset belonged to 18th century when daughters were killed soon after they were born,” he said.
Several Union Ministers, including Maneka Gandhi, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Smriti Irani and JP Nadda, Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki and Chief Minister Manohar lal Khattar joined Modi as he launched the scheme. Bollywood actress Madhuri Dixit was also present as a brand ambassador to promote the drive against female foeticide.
Administering a pledge to the gathering that they will work to end female foeticide and discrimination against girls, he said, “We are, in fact, worse than that. In those times, (in 18th century), girls would be allowed to be born and live for some time. We kill our daughters in the wombs of their mothers... In the root of this is our mental poverty.”
Noting that in the Indian society, sons are considered very important, he said there is a belief that “daughters are a property of some other house where they would be married. This disease is not of Haryana alone but this mental illness ails the whole country.”
Referring to Haryana, he said it was very painful for him to see that in a State, which produced a woman like Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian woman to have travelled in space, “other Kalpana Chawlas are killed in the wombs of their mothers”.
He also launched Sukanya Samridhi Yojana (girl child prosperity scheme), under which a girl child below 10 years will have bank accounts with more interest and income tax benefits.
Modi said though this programme has been organised in Panipat in Haryana, the message is relevant across the country. “If daughters are not born, how will you get daughters-in-law, the Prime Minister asked”IJ He said there were people who wanted educated daughters-in-law, but were reluctant to educate their own daughters, and called for an end to this hypocrisy.
He quoted the eminent Urdu scholar from Panipat, Altaf Hussain Haali “O Sisters, mothers, daughters — you are the ornaments of the world, you are the life of nations, the dignity of civilisations.” He also quoted from other ancient scriptures to highlight the importance given to the girl child.