UTTAR PRADESH, India: When farmer Shyam Babu spotted what looked like a tiny hand emerging from the mud, he thought it was a doll. But it wasn’t. Beneath the soil lay a newborn baby girl—alive, bleeding, and covered in ants.
The shocking discovery in Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, last month was documented by CNN, which followed the case from rescue to tragedy. The infant, later named Pari (“angel” in Hindi), was rushed to hospital where doctors battled to save her from infections and respiratory distress.
Despite their efforts, Pari succumbed to her injuries days later. Police said they are still searching for her parents and investigating whether she was buried alive due to her gender, disability, or mistaken death.
A Mirror to India’s Persistent Gender Crisis
The CNN report highlights the painful persistence of gender-based violence in India’s hinterlands. Doctors and villagers told reporters they had seen multiple cases where baby girls were abandoned or killed — never boys.
“There is pressure to birth a boy,” said a villager. “If it is a girl, they get her aborted.”
Female infanticide and selective abortion remain widespread despite legal bans.
The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act of 1994 prohibits sex determination, yet illegal clinics still operate in secrecy. According to a 2020 UN report, India has nearly 46 million “missing females”, a result of both sex-selective abortions and infanticide.
In Shahjahanpur, the gender ratio — 872 females per 1,000 males — reflects that reality. Activists say women who give birth to multiple daughters face verbal and physical abuse.
“Her position in the family depends on whether she has a son or a daughter,” said health volunteer Kamaljeet Kaur.
Government Campaigns and Hollow Slogans
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” (Save the Girl Child, Educate the Girl Child) campaign, launched in 2015, sought to combat such discrimination. Official data claims progress — a rise in the national sex ratio from 918 to 934 girls per 1,000 boys — but critics say the change is mostly cosmetic.
A 2021 parliamentary report found nearly 79% of the campaign’s funds went into media promotions rather than tangible programs for girls’ health or education. “People say the slogan,” said Sarita Singh, the nurse who cared for Pari, “but in reality, no one is following it.”
India’s ruling elite celebrates women’s empowerment in speeches while turning away from systemic injustices: gender violence, caste oppression, and discrimination against Muslims and Christians. Each neglected case like Pari’s is a reminder that beneath the veneer of “New India” lies an old, festering bias — one that denies dignity to both women and minorities.
The Angel Who Returned to the Soil
Pari’s short life and silent death symbolize a cruel paradox — a country that worships goddesses yet still buries its daughters.
Her rescuer, Babu, says fate led him to her that day. “I took her out of the soil, but she has returned to it,” he told CNN, his voice trembling.
For India’s forgotten daughters, Pari’s story is both a tragedy and a mirror — one that reflects not only the dirt that covered her tiny body, but also the deeper stain of a society still unready to love its girls.
A Mirror to India’s Enduring Inequalities
The CNN report revealed that in rural UTTAR PRADESH, baby girls are still seen as curses, while sons symbolize honor and inheritance. Female infanticide, dowry pressure, and illegal gender-selective abortions persist despite decades of legal reform. “I have never seen a boy abandoned like this,” said Dr. Rajesh Kumar, a local pediatrician.
This is not just a gender issue — it’s part of a wider structure of inequality that has long devalued those outside the dominant social order. The same mindset that allows daughters to be buried alive also fuels discrimination against India’s religious and caste minorities. In regions like UTTAR PRADESH, where violence against Dalits, Muslims, and tribal communities is reported regularly, the silence of authorities often mirrors the apathy that met Pari’s death.
According to the United Nations, India accounts for nearly 46 million “missing females”, a haunting reflection of what activists call a “cultural genocide of girls.” Yet, the crisis of exclusion extends beyond gender — it is woven into India’s social fabric, from inter-caste violence to the lynchings of minorities carried out under the banner of cultural nationalism.
Pari’s life — brief and brutal — reflects more than just rural cruelty. It exposes how discrimination in India is not isolated but systemic: from the womb to the village, from caste lines to communal divides. Her story is not just about one buried baby girl — it is about a nation still burying its conscience.
