Progress seldom follows a linear pattern; new challenges are created with every hurdle that is crossed. This would be the correct inference to draw from the findings of the annual report of the Civil Registration System for 2019 that have yielded a mixed picture as far as India’s perennial gender imbalance problem is concerned. On the one hand, none of the states and Union territories surveyed recorded a sex ratio at birth that was less than 900 girls for every 1,000 boys. On the other, several of them registered significant declines from the data they had posted in 2017 and 2018. This is not surprising; figures from the National Family Health Survey published as recently as December last year found that out of 22 states, eight that had previously made progress in their sex ratios had reported discouraging figures. As far as the CRS data are concerned, the apparent reversals in the performances of certain states are worthy of note. Chhattisgarh, which has a predominantly tribal population that usually has a better record than other communities when it comes to a healthy SRB, noted the highest fall, while habitual offenders in terms of sex-selective abortions like Punjab and Chandigarh have improved their SRB rates significantly. The SRB figure has also fallen marginally in Kerala — India’s most literate state. This only goes to puncture the myth that higher literacy levels complement gender sensitivity.

There are several reasons to which the persistent challenges can be attributed. Institutional oversight and regressive societal attitudes have led to the overwhelming preference for the male child in India. Even the strict implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, which bans prenatal sex determination, has not helped. The record of welfare programmes has been equally patchy. The Centre’s Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao scheme has had little to no success, with a disproportionate amount of funds spent on advertisements as was revealed in Parliament in 2019 — the same year for which the CRS data were recorded. The breaches on the medical, legislative and societal fronts are but one part of the problem. The absence of political will to address these anomalies is an equally formidable obstacle.