No one wants a girl. This simple, apparently incontrovertible, fact of Indian life was established anew in a hospital in Vadodara recently, when two newborn babies were exchanged by mistake. Two mothers with the same name delivered a boy and a girl. The boy was initially given to the girl’s mother, who later refused to accept the girl when the hospital rectified the error. The hospital cannot discharge the mothers, and is keeping the babies in the intensive paediatric care unit; the girl’s real mother was persuaded to nurse the child in order to keep her alive. The women have said they will accept their respective babies once they are shown adequate proof.

There is more than one issue here. How can a hospital get babies mixed up? Whether the mothers have the same first names, or are laid side by side, this is almost inconceivable, except in the worst of a mother’s fears or in a Hindi film. What is even more puzzling is the question of proof. How is it that the wronged mothers need to wait for proof of the identity of their babies? Gujarat is known for its efficiency. If this can happen in one of its primary cities, it is terrifying to think what might happen in the rural and small-town hospitals of less efficient states, such as West Bengal. Then there is, of course, the fight over the boy. Or rather, the fact that not even a mother wants a girl, and needs to be persuaded to nurse her. Although this particular episode is not violent, it does expose the unconscious cruelty that underlies society’s — including mothers’ — attitude to girls. There have been reported incidents of husbands or in-laws disappearing after the first visit if a girl has been born, of mothers trying to smother or even throw away the baby if it is a girl. In spite of being illegal, pre-natal sex tests have resulted in countless abortions. These, together with traditional methods of killing newborn girls perfected by rural midwives, and the early neglect of female babies, have upset the sex ratio throughout most of India. The incident in the Vadodara hospital is just another, rather mild, manifestation of what being a girl means in this country.