Rapes, assaults and dowry-related murders, wife-burning, child prostitution, slavery, female infanticide and sex-selective abortions, unequal access to education, maternal mortality rates among the highest in the world in rural areas…While women are guaranteed equality under the constitution in India, legal protection has little effect in the face of prevailing patriarchal traditions.

I faced that bitter reality in an over-crowded night-train. I was sharing my bed with a 35-year-old Indian woman who told me her heart-breaking story. She was going to the hospital in Delhi for an hysterectomy after a 7th miscarriage. The tears were running out of her eyes and the sobs were flying out of her throat…Of course she talked about how she’ll never going to be able to have a baby but she seemed to be even more concerned about the dishonor she was inflicting on her husband, shameful about her failure as a wife and daughter-in-law. As many other women in India, she was convinced that the primary duty of a married young woman is to bear sons.

Sometimes it’s hard not to think it’s a war against women in India. It’s a fight to the death, and mostly it’s the women dying.