July 27, 2007
Immortal.News
I think it was Camille who originally alerted us to the horrific discovery of a baby in Bombay, who had been stabbed almost to death, before being thrown in the garbage.
A newborn Indian baby found abandoned with 26 stab wounds has survived, doctors said on Wednesday, despite a cracked skull and exposed intestines.
The baby boy, who doctors said was aged between one and two days, was discovered soaked in blood at a garbage dump in India’s financial capital of Mumbai on Tuesday, they said.
His intestines were hanging out from a deep wound on his back and he had dirt and garbage stuck on him.
“When he was brought in he looked pale from blood loss,” said Ramesh Hatti, a doctor at a city hospital.
“He is still in a lot of pain but is now stable.”
Police have not been able to trace the baby’s parents or establish a reason for the attack.
Babies are sometimes abandoned by unwed Indian mothers, who fear severe social repercussions for having a child out of wedlock. [CNN]
Today, another tipster emailed us an update— via The Mumbai Mirror:
The good news is that the infant is doing well…Dr Oak said he has been taken off the ventilator. “He is able to breathe on his own but he is too young and vulnerable to infection. So, we may keep him in the ICU for a few days,” he said.
The phone has been ringing off the hook, at the hospital.
Many callers were eager to adopt the little one. A woman called up the Mumbai Mirror office and said, “How can I adopt the baby? What is the procedure. How can I help this child?”
According to Madhuri Mhatre, a social worker with an adoption agency called Bal Anand, “Adoption takes a lot of time because we have to be sure that the child goes into a good family. We check the legal, financial and domestic background of all prospective parents.”
In any case, doctors said, it is too early to speak of adoption.
This tiny little fighter is so lucky, so fierce:
A milkman saw the bleeding child in a garbage dump outside Lokhandwala complex at Kandivli (W) on Tuesday morning. He rushed the baby to Bhagwati hospital in Borivli. But since Bhagwati was not equipped to take care of the injured infant, he was sent to B Y L Nair Hospital. Doctors carried out a two-hour operation on Tuesday night to close the wounds and replace lost blood. He was then put on a ventilator.
I get chills every time I read that. How many times did this child slip through death’s fingers…
The state government plans to inquire about the miracle baby now recuperating in B Y L Nair Hospital…
Since government-run children’s homes do not often handle newborns, the department will contact NGOs who have the expertise to do so.
“At the same time, I have instructed my officials to check out if the government-run children’s homes in Mumbai and Pune have the facilities to take care of the baby,” said Dr Singh, who is unhappy about too much publicity being given to the baby’s wounds.
Wait, why?
He says such images can cause distress among citizens.
Oh, boo-hoo. There can’t be enough publicity, if it inspires much-necessary outrage and reasserts the power of shame. The elderly and the newly-born are not garbage, to be disposed of when inconvenient.
anna on July 27, 2007 05:35 PM in Kids, News · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
This is an interesting case in that the baby is a boy, not a girl, as would be normally expected.
I'd be interested to find out why someone did this, and who they are.
This is shocking, and yes, mostly because the baby is a boy. After reading the story of the elderly woman that was thrown into the garbage, I am not surprised at how low humanity will sink.
I hope that this tiny miracle will have a better fate than the one that was destined for him by his attacker. Count on me to spread the word, distressing or not.
I thought the exact same thing-- I wonder if it was an unwed mother?
Unlike the other cases of infanticide & abandonment blogged about in SM, this horrifying act does not seem to be indicitive of larger social ills. It seems more like a mental illness issue. I expect that if they find the mother she will be deranged in a very obvious way.
I don't think it is an unwed mother, she would have faced the greatest risk of detection during the pregnancy and the method of the attempted infanticide seems to be atypical.
Anyway, I hope this baby pulls through without any memory of this cruel introduction to the world and finds a happy home
My guess is that it is not a parent or even family member or did this to the baby, but someone else, in an act of revenge or something.
The baby was due to an affair. The husband came to know about it and went crazy. So he stabbed the baby and threw it in the garbage dump.
If this isn't a perennial case of this I dont know what is. This child has to be simultaneously the luckiest and unluckiest person alive.
please accept the possibility that this action was the product of a diseased mind, post-partum depression, schizophrenia etc. and is not an India specific pathology like sex selective abortion & infanticide. In this particular case, unlike the baby girl buried alive whose grandfather provided a "reason", I am not sure there is a "teachable moment" here. Generating outrage doesn't have much utility when the potential perpetrators are not working with a full deck.
Neither does attempting to explain it away with psycho-mumbo-jumbo. Such people should be removed from society so they can stop potentially harming others - then dissect them, poke them prod them all you want.
What a sad story. What a good fighter that little man is. I hope he makes a fully recovery.
I'd take that kid home if I could. I wish adoption were easier State-side and in India/Bangladesh.
Sick as it sounds, I'm so glad it's not a girl. That being said, mental disease or not, they need to use all their resources to find the person who did this, and then really give it to them. I won't elaborate on that but this is one situation where I'd be glad knowing how the Indian police tend to treat people.
louiecypher - just curious, are you advocating mercy over justice for mentally unstable perpetrators? if not, what interventions would you suggest?
It looks like his face was spared from the stabbing, and he apparently has all his limbs intact, so hopefully he'll recover fully and have a normal life. I doubt he'll have psychological trauma from this since he's so young, although finding out one day what was done to him will no doubt cause problems. Hopefully there's been no brain damage, and that cracked skull is also very worrying. Normally I never even hold babies until they're a few months old, since they look so fragile when they're born, but this shows just how tough they can be. The only silver lining here is if he was born to some poor, insane, dysfunctional folks and now gets adopted by nice, loving, financially stable parents.
ANNA:
,This is what I hope will take place and maybe start some social change.
There is one positive should the baby survive,(because of his age),Memory of the pain and trauma will be forgotten.
Thanks Almighty that this is a male child. Otherwise we would have a India/Indian men/ Indian patriarchal society bashing post. I can also see the sense of disappointment among the first few commenters. They were almost wishing/hoping that the abandoned child was female. Just another opportunity for Americans to take the moral high ground (never mind their armed forces are killing tens of thousands of Iraqi children for "democracy")
HMF:
I acknowledged that there were cases that demand outrage (perhaps you have a reading disability?) but that perhaps in this case outrage would not have any utility seeing as how by definition crazy people don't respond well to reason or social pressures. I invite you to go picket the unhappy souls that walk up and down the street muttering to themselves if you feel that will be of use.
Amitabh:
I suggested where exactly that this person shouldn't be caught and punished or institutionalized ?
Before anymore people jump on me, let me suggest that you re-read my earlier comments on matters (e.g. caste, female infanticide, criminal justice system) that might be embarassing to Indians. Do I appear to be one of the "Baby girls are killed in the US, how dare you Anna" folks ? This is different by the very fact that the child is a boy and was stabbed instead of suffocated/administered oleander what have you. What were the emotions that people had when the mentally ill mother in Texas drown her 5 kids? Was that a freak occurrence or something indicative of some American rot? So far there is nothing about this story, and I repeat unlike the Andhra case, that is uniquely Indian. Sheesh...
You can't sense anything except for what YOU are feeling, and whatever that is, it's foul. Who are you to accuse people of anything?
This is abusive, pointless and intolerant. All violations of comment policy.
Just so you know-- this IS an American blog. Now that you have learned that, perhaps you'll take yourself and the chip on your shoulder elsewhere. If you care to stay, try being more reasonable.
I seriously felt like throwing up when I read this. Abandoning a baby is bad enough, but STABBING him? It is too bad authorities will most likely never find out who did this.
I cannot comprehend the pathology of the person who could have stabbed a little ,defenceless child not once, not twice but twenty-six times. I wish I could bring that baby home but as # 10 said adoption is so complicated.
EVERYONE can take the high moral ground on this - its a barbaric act against humanity for Gods' sake
And God bless that anonymous milkman who saved the child .
Two possible motivations, both also suggested by other commenters, could plausibly explain such a deliberate, horrific act - a) female perpetrator - post partum depression or psychosis leading to infanticide or b) male perpetrator - homicidal rage of a cuckold.
We know how other primates react in cases similar to b) - male gorillas, for example, go on an infanticidal rampage when they beat out a competitor for his harem. One hopes that human good sense would win out over primate (primal?) instincts, especially the well-known preference for a male child in India - but abnormal bad-actor cases do occur, and this might be one.
And where did I suggest reason or social pressure? I believe I said, "Such people should be removed from society so they can stop potentially harming others - then dissect them, poke them prod them all you want."
What an amazing coincidence, I was thinking exactly the same thing.
I told my mum about the story (when first posted), and after getting over the shock of the violent nature, she said, back in the day, through the villages of Punjab, families would drop their female infants from the roof. If she died, their job was done, but if she survived, she was a "kismet-wali" and therefore was lucky and would bring good fortune.
So, I had to ask...was I ever dropped in Patiala?
Again, because of your disability. I was questioning the use of outrage and shame in this particular case and did not suggest that the perp should get a pass, you countered that I was some moral relatavist trying "explain things away". I'm done with you
#15 has a point.
"The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche believed that pity causes an otherwise normal person to feel his or her own suffering in an inappropriately intense, alienated way. "Pity makes suffering contagious," he says in The Antichrist, meaning that it is important for the pitier not to allow him/herself to feel superior to the pitied, lest such a power imbalance result in the pitied retaliating against the help being offered."
And the point of such outrage would be?? As louiecypher already mentioned, it'd be pointless in this case.
Number 6 & 25 are the same person. We ban for handle-switching. Please choose one to converse with and interact with others in a civil fashion...concocting rumors is tactless. Warning #1.
SM Intern: Why you be shakin a switch after handle switchers who use their handle switchings to switch on humor?
#6 -- with the handle -- seemed tongue-in-cheek, or maybe switch-in-cheek?
Jujung: Please, please don't link me with the commenter in #15. I disagree with him completely....my whole point is that the poor treatment of female children in India is a culture specific pathology that should attract outrage and shame but that this is probably a one off case that could have happened anywhere
Louiecypher #4: a line in the CNN article, quoted in the post as well, states that "Babies are sometimes abandoned by unwed Indian mothers, who fear severe social repercussions for having a child out of wedlock."
Your point about full-term pregnancy being difficult to conceal makes sense, but perhaps social repercussions are in full blow only when you're raising the child out of wedlock?
God bless the child for it is a strong one, and not to sound insensitive but lage rahoooo...
Whaaaaaaaaaat?????
HyperTree: Abandonment of male children might fit within the "stigma of unwed motherhood" bucket, but to stab a baby 26 times shows a level of hate that I would not expect towards an unwanted infant. While I won't discount the miraculous, I don't believe that an adult with a knife who had no other motive than ending this child's life quickly would have failed.
At some level when babies are left to die of exposure the adult tries to rationalize it away as being less reprehensible than killing outright. And abandonment means many things, including dropping off the baby no questions asked at certain officially monitored spots(this policy exists at police stations in Tamil Nadu).
I haven't attacked the media for their coverage & analysis of the other infanticide cases because I didn't disagree with them. But I guarantee if this particular case had happened in the US, the first analysis would be "mentally ill" mom or crazed tweaker rather than an unecessarily complex one with little explanatory power (e.g. shamed Bob Jones U co-ed)
Thanks to female infanticide, states in the north and the west have ratios that are very substantially below the benchmark figure, led by Punjab.
Saira, why don't these people hold out for a groom that does not demand dowry rather than kill their babies?
And Punjab is majority Sikh and in Sikhi there is not supposed to be either dowry nor gender preference.
What is wrong with us?
Louiecypher: I'm no amateur-stabbing-observologist, but I seem to recollect most amateur stabbings having this "large number" facet to them. So perhaps, we can conclude only that the stabber is not by profession a hit-(wo)man, and not that he or she is insane.
I don't understand, why does this isolated incident alone seem to upset you? There are thousands, perhaps millions of tragic infant deaths, but you seem to only care when an Indian baby is brutalized. This comment is in no shape or form a way to downplay the seriousness of this incident, but it makes me sick how some people here only care about Indian politics, and in some instances, Indian people. I'm wondering when people will start caring for others on a global scale rather than caring for the people who share the same culture. Frankly, this is hardly any better than the KKK or Hitler. Nationalism may seem okay to you on paper, but if history has taught us a lesson, it's that nationalism leads to hatred and to an extreme, violence. If you don't seem to care about Americans, why did you come to America? Was the sole purpose to just leech off of its superior economy? This is in no way a troll post.
aren't we all wondering when people will realize that their individual fortunes are in some ways dependent on the fortunes of others?
But it is interesting to see the Hitler and KKK comparisons trotted out on a post like this. Would you perhaps compare the bloggers to Goebbels, with their rather insidious campaign of promoting honest inquiry, lively debate and, most egregious of all (feel free to attach Rwandan/Armenian/Holocaust comparisions here) their willingness to allow unregistered commentators to shit all over their group blog as long as they keep the diatribe focused and on-topic.
oh well. the world will never recover from it's interminable imprisonment in the evil clutches of the nefarious SM.
Das Taj, points duly noted,but we all realize that globally, this was an abominable act. But this site focuses on South Asian issues, not that there's insensitivity, but this site clearly states that it focuses on South Asian stories/angles/issues, to try to insinuate that any member/poster/participant is insensitive to broader global issues, is and I say this lightly, misguided.
#36:
Wow, "hardly any better than . . . Hitler."
C'mon--that's so over the top I wonder if you're not spoofing us.
That is horrible; what the hell is wrong with people!
Mr. spokesperson for the disabled, I countered that bringing up any supposed mental illness which you solely based on the act, and not any other empirical data, is just as useless as outright shame and outrage. And you hadn't suggested a pass should be given, but neither did you suggest any punishment as well. Additionally, this child was stabbed 26 f*cking times, thats a serious investment of time,
Im glad, maybe you can get back to your ever consuming noble work of disability awareness.
Sometimes to understand local (read desi) events we need to have global perspective. Child killing happens in America also .for e.g. see the microwave killing of baby - http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-07-20-microwaved-baby_N.htm?csp=34. Can we analyze similar events globally so as to understand this horrible event in India ? Is there any medico-socio-economic-psychological reason/trend that one can dig out from various such events ?
considering these comments it would be interesting to blog about the ways desis in america mimic some of the horrible acts by our cousins in india and thus break the model minority tag. i understand that SM has blogged about caste, female infanticide amongst desis in america but maybe we should hear more about \"crimes\" by desis in america.
So naturally you assume that I am not in favor of punishment or institutional confinement.
Weak attempt feeb, looks like your family doesn't share your enthusiasm for eugenics.
I read words, not minds. I'm working on that though, maybe your organization can set me up with a telepathically disabled specialist.
Anna, the Reuters report was extremely lazy journalism and the out of wedlock angle was pure conjencture. That report cannot be a basis for 'shame'. No disrespect, but we must be careful about the conclusions we make.
Shyam, I suggest the News tab and if you are realy on a crusade to point out the indiscretions of brown people in the US, the blogosphere is like the US, free and open.
To those who were upset with my previous post, I apologize. My initial belief was that people would comprehend my KKK and Hitler analogy as a form of hyperbole, but I suppose that wasn't the case, unfortunately. Is it really our responsibility as American born Indians to discuss politics that hardly even affect us personally? If so, why can't we actually make use of our youth and at least attempt to stop the injustices of the Indian government/social life. I mean, as effective as complaining/blogging on the internet is (read: sarcasm), I'm quite sure that close to few are willing to improve Indian society. To those Desis who are ignorant to Indian society, India simply isn't the colorful fashion-fest that the Desi woman want to believe, and so forth. In fact, I'm not sure if the SM has touched upon this, as I have only recently been coming to this blog, but 53% of Indian children are sexually abused in some way, according to a recent government survey. If that isn't an atrocity, I don't know what is. So yes, it might be fun to "celebrate" the "greatness" that is the Indian culture, but Gandhi's mission has yet to be accomplished in India.
Those who consider SM remiss for not blogging about X, Y or Z would do well to remember that this site has over 4,000 posts which span three years. More likely than not, we've covered it.
If not, Global Sanskrit is right-- the news tab exists for a reason...and so does free blogging software. This site is about South Asia and its diaspora, from a second-generation, American perspective. If you want global or American news which does not have a desi angle, this is not the right destination for you.
Since some of you appear confused, this story closely follows another post where someone helpless was thrown in the trash in India and left to die. The only conclusion this post made was that disposing of live humans in garbage dumps is shameful. Quoting CNN about "unwed mothers" does exactly what it should-- inspire discussion.
Dude(tte),
53%.. take the statistics with a pinch of salt. I think taking a "naked" photo of your baby and storing it in the computer constitutes "sex abuse of children" in America, but it is quite common in India, I have heard an instance of an Indian family getting into trouble in US when they tried to develop the photos they took of their baby. They have to convince the police that there was no malicious intention etc..
This looks like a case of a psycho mom/dad/relative stabbing the child. I hope that the child recovers and leads a good life. It is really a miracle to survive the wounds.
The 53% stats are very valid and very true. I have friends working with victims of child abuse and they have told me similar things. And like you I too wanted to take it with a pinch of salt. I was projecting my upbringing on to kids I didn't know anything about. It isn't an issue of class. Abuse, I hear, is rampant regardless.
And personally, I feel this kid kicks ass. He is after all "the boy that lived". Some one please name him Hari Puttar. :)
Or David Dunn
I hope he will recover well and receive a good home. Anna, thank you for posting these types of stories.
Boy or girl, i am glad the kid survived.....
I agree with the doc though. The only reason people seem to be getting all emotional is because someone attempted to kill the baby by stabbing him. There must be so many babies in India that get thrown out like garbage, you don't hear about them. Nobody gets up to go look for these babies to adopt them.
Also, many adults in India kiss and pinch the genitals of babies as a sign of affection. We're talking 75 year old grannies here. I doubt they have any malicious intent, however the behaviour looks very strange for those coming from a country where almost any physical affection shown to a baby/child is "suspect" with the child-abuse scare spread the way it is.
But beyond that, there is also some "suspect" behaviour geared towards children in India that also passes as a "cultural" thing; adult men teasing little boys by pulling at their privates and joking, "yeh kya hai?". That is definetly borderline, but I don't think very many people, the children included, would categorize that as "sexual abuse" especially since they may not be informed about what constitutes "abuse" by Indian law or by the norms of other cultures.
I also think there is alot of "touchy-feely" activity between older kids (teenagers) towards younger ones. I've known of cases where teenagers who were coming of age knew nothing about how to deal with their new emotions and physical development because none of their guardian adults were preparing them for that stage in life and outlining to them appropriate behaviour, and so they started feeling up toddlers, which was dismissed by their parents as just a "stage".
This comment was accidentally deleted:
Wasn't intentional-- very sorry.
53% Indian kids are sexually abused, but none of them is on this board (and probably no one on this board knows one either). How amazing !!!
On this board we are all "working to save these victims"...
Unless you know every reader here, and what they do when they aren't reading SM, stop making derisive comments about how no one "does anything".
This could have been an opportunity to discuss post-partum depression (as some attempted to do), the way the other "thrown away in the garbage" thread turned in to a much-appreciated exploration of what "the sandwich" generation can do wrt caring for their elderly family members.
Or, this could have been a thread where people felt comfortable to say, "That's horrible, I'm so glad he survived"; anyone with a heart who read this news was touched by it and many wanted to express just that. That's allowed. No one has to do more than that to prove anything to some anonymous and scornful commenters.
An open discussion which is respectful. That's what this blog was meant for-- nothing more, nothing less.
here is some info on the "cradle baby" program setup by the TN govt to address the female infanticide & out of wedlock scenarios. At a high level they offer the opportunity to give up children to the state without any legal reprecussions:
Description of program
Success in Dharmapuri District in TN
In the district profiled above, 600 children were abandoned at one particular center between 2002-2003. Only 26 were boys. Out of wedlock shame is mentioned as a cause for some abandonments.Would the parents of these babies dropped them off at temples or on a doorstep instead of killing them had the center not been there ? Who knows, but aside for education, outrage, shame (useful tactics in dealing with female infanticide which is driven by prevailing anti-female attitudes, which is unlikely in this case)it might be the next best thing
How would you know if someone one this board had been abused or not. Abuse is not something that victims wear on their sleeves. Chances are that some people on this board have indeed been victims of some type of abuse at some point in their lives.
yeah! that what abortion is for
On that note, how common is it that women suffering from PPD actually commit violent acts towards their infants? Amongst those that do, is there a previous history of violence, mental derangement, or alcohol/drug abuse?
I ask because I cannot imagine otherwise non-violent, mentally healthy women actually committing violence against their own in times of frustration, although I know that PPD is very real.
I can't believe it took this long for someone to make this comment. Yes, taking an innocent life is unwarranted. But this is clearly more about hurting the child than avoiding some sort of family shame or social stigma. It would have been easy for whoever did this to kill this baby in a mere moment. Yet they chose to stab, over and over, and torture the child over what I'm sure were cries of pain.
Abortion is not an easy decision for most individuals to make, and when one does make such a decision there are indeed consequences, in spite of a clean room, a kind doctor and someone to hold your hand afterwards. In the eyes of many, you're seen as a murderer, but I'll still always be the stupid girl that made the stupid mistake with the wrong guy. Not a day goes by where I don't think "what if", so if that's a fitting punishment, then there you have it.
Someone who knows, the comment which you responded to was obnoxious and uncalled-for...and had I not been writing my latest post, I would have noticed it and nuked it myself. I'm sorry. :(
No problem.. I didn't even notice it. Thanks.
"Sepia sympathetic" as I am, what does the rest of the world
make of this story?... and that of the grandmother left on the
garbage heap?
I am afraid that most will dismiss India as a "backward" country...
"Really... and they have NUCLEAR capabilities?)
(And, yes, I know that this kind of stuff happens in America, too).
So I posted the news story, and what caught my eye was how awful and disgusting it was. I was nauseous for hours after reading this story. To be honest, I don't think this is unique to India, and I also think folks bring up good points when they mention that this case is infamous because the child died. The wedlock angle sounded bizarre/inaccurate as well. All that said, I did post the story because it had a distinctly desi angle (which is what I understand SM to be, and personally don't find that nationalistic). That said, this story is horrific, but I'm glad to hear the little one is recuperating.
I also cannot believe we got to Godwin's Principle in under 30 posts. That's actually really disheartening.
I was so disgusted and upset when I read this story. I am so glad the little fighter is doing better and can only pray he has a full and beautiful life to compensate for his first few days. It's almost good to hear that the media has adopted him just so they can hopefully root out the monsters who did this. I have to ask though, what would be the Indian (and foreign) media's reaction if it was a girl baby? I'm sure the angel of a milkman would have taken the same action, but just curious what kind of debate would be re-hashed in the public forum or what kind of attention would be called to those rural villages where infanticide is more rampant? Does it surprise anyone else that the grandmother and baby both called Bombay home? Not that this would be any less tragic were it outside of a big city, but just saying...
what i appreciate most is the title of this post.
Amen to that. I surprised myself by reaching my hand out to touch his picture on my screen.
I hope that this innocent child recovers and am heartened by the outpouring of support from people that want to adopt him. It was my first thought before I even got to that point in the writeup.
As for the "people" that put him in this position in the first place, they will pay one day, if they haven't already.
THIS IS PATIAAAALAAAA!
I hope you understand what 53% means. It mean more than 1 in 2 people in India are abused. If that was real than either India is a society of monsters or the data is full of shit. I am amazed at people's ignorance in basic arithmetic.
To make sure we have a steady stream of depressing news, here's one about prostitution that made Digg's front page: Sex workers chronicle life in Indian brothels
well it could be some kinda sacrifice you know. There are still people who believe that if you sacrifice your first born MALE child, you get like a blank cheque from god. There was a case in delhi couple years back, but sadly that baby dint survive the horrors it was subjected to.
So apparently they've named him Mrityunjaya (maybe that means 'victorious over death'?) and he's still recovering but doing better. Many families have offered to adopt him, and he will eventually go to one of them.
How come word of mouth/word on the street hasn't been enough to find the culprits?
Since many reasons have been speculated in this thread about the real cause of this baby being killed - here are the real reasons from the news tab :
... mother had an illigetimate child and was 3 months pregnant when she got married to another person after the real father was not interested in marrying...