India and Pakistan celebrated their 60th independence anniversary recently. In many ways those countries have made considerable progress during those past 60 years. These days you often read that India is on the way of becoming an economic superpower, and maybe soon a military superpower, too. There is now a huge manufacturing industry there, especially textiles, but also a successful computer software industry. In both those fields European and American firms suffered a lot in the past few decades and had to close or downsize or outsource because they could no longer compete with their new Asian competitors due to the much lower wages paid in India.

But how has India progressed in cultural and social terms in the same period? There are more restrictive laws in India now than under the British colonial administration. And there are still the same suppressive religious customs followed today, even if some have been banned. The horrible caste system is still enforced in many (particularly rural) communities. Although the government has tried to abolish the dowry system, it is still customary in many parts of the country. And it still happens that women are murdered if they (or their family) don't provide enough dowry money. Superstition is rife: some people are killed because they are accused of being witches. Religious charlatans exploit the gullible masses, getting rich in the process. A famous Indian painter cannot exhibit his works in his own country because the puritanical authorities object to the amount of female skin being shown on some of his paintings. There is strict censorship of books and films. Forced labour for children is still common, they have to work in slave-like conditions for peanuts.

During the past generation a particularly nasty practice has spread even further: the killing of infant girls or abortion of female foetuses. Although pre-natal sex-determination tests have been outlawed in India, there are loopholes to get around that law, and in any case many doctors can be bribed. That antipathy against baby girls stems from the low value attached to females in Indian society. Girls are seen as a burden, requiring huge dowry payments (when the girl marries) which many families cannot afford. That practice (of aborting a foetus if found to be female) has caused an imbalance of the sexes, there is now a huge surplus of young men in India (in 2001 only 927 girls were born per 1000 boys). In some districts the ratio is even more extreme, some have reported figures of only 45% female births. One result of that development was a sharp increase in violent sex crimes.

So while India has a good educational system and a rapidly improving economy, many of its inhabitants, including some highly educated ones, still have a Neanderthal mentality* as regards social and cultural affairs. Those inhumane customs are supported by many politicians. Of course many Indians still like to blame the long-gone evil British rulers for most of India's problems today, some kind of eternal excuse for all their ills. Fortunately there are a few enlightened persons and organisations fighting against those conditions, e.g. the Rationalist Association of India, which is trying to educate the population and warn them against fraudulent gurus. But of course they are only a tiny minority, and sometimes get harassed by the authorities. Those few voices of reason in a world of superstition deserve our support.

Alex Hill

* Or am I unfair to Neanderthals? Not much is known about them, maybe they had more enlightened attitudes than some of today's Hindus and Muslims.