Miss Missed or Miss Missing: Reality Behind Declining Child Sex Ratio in Kashmir-India

The findings of Census-2011 pertaining to drastic decline in Child Sex Ratio in Kashmir Valley (India) seem to be shocking given the Muslim majority character of the region, poor socio-economic status of women but lower gender discrimination in health and nutrition. Initially, the State Government closed ultrasound clinics, but due to the limited availability of reliable information on the extent of use of ultrasound for sex selection, most of the ultrasound clinics have been reopened. However, the decline in CSR has become a subject of debate both among academicians and civil society, but hardly any academic effort has been made to analyse the reality behind the decline in CSR in Kashmir. Using data from various sources regarding SRB and use of ultrasound and interaction with the census enumerators, the present paper aims to analyse whether the female feticide in Kashmir is a reality or the politicization of census has resulted in a drastic decline in CSR in Kashmir. The findings indicate that Kashmir has a normal SRB and women who use ultrasound do so for diagnostics purposes and not necessarily for sex determination of fetus. The underreporting of females in Census seems to have resulted in skewed child sex ratio in Kashmir.