The Uprising: Infanticide

1 - Act I Scene I

[The curtain opens. Anaamika enters the stage from the right, holding a page from her diary in her hands. Her eyebrows are drawn together.]

Anaamika: Twenty years ago, back in Mahadevi Village, Haryana, I was found swaddled in a thin, fraying, duppatta in the middle of a forest. I had not been placed - I had been discarded like a secret meant to be buried, meant to be forgotten.

My tiny body bruised against the rough, harsh ground; before I could speak, I was already meant to be swallowed and covered up.

My father couldn’t kill me while I was in my mother’s womb, so he tried to do it as soon as I came out.

2 - Act I Scene II

Little did her know, what he tried to bury wasn’t a mere body, rather a seed. A seed of uprising, one he couldn’t run away from, couldn’t hide as much as he wanted to.

Little did her know, ten young men would come to save me later that night.

But that doesn’t erase what happened to me. What continues to happen to millions of girls in our villages.

(looking down, pointing to her baby bump) I can’t let my baby have the same fate.

I can’t let any other babies have the same fate.

(looking up) so I’m here to tell you what really goes on in Haryana’s villages.

My father is the reason this uprising is needed, and I’m not letting this flame this any soon.

Act I Scene II

[“20 years ago” is projected on the screen. On a dimly lit stage, Anaamika’s Mother is with her midwife, right after Anaamika was born.]

Mother (tense): Please, Devi, don’t take her. She’s all I have. I have held four lifeless bodies - felt their warmth fade, their fingers go cold. Please, spare her - spare me.

Devi (looking down): It’s not in my hands.

Grandmother (coldly): Then do what must be done.

Mother (voice trembling, tears trickling down her eyes): NO….NO, PLEASE - TAKE ME INSTEAD! She’s just a baby - what has she done to deserve this?

[Silence. The mother grabs a piece of paper from a table to her right. Her writing is projected on screen, “what they shall buruy is what they shall reap.” Her eyes roll up, breath stops.]

1 - Act II Scene I

[“20 years later” is projected on the screen. Anaamika continues reading the diary entry in her hands, visible on screen.]

Anaamika: I never got to meet my mother while I was alive. The thought of them killing me was enough for her to go.

Today, I met Devi, her midwife. She whispered, “They forced me to feed you salt and then bury you in the forest. I couldn’t bury you that day. So I just left yu in the middle of it.”

They tried to bury me, but they didn’t know I would survive. They didn’t know that burying me was like buring a seed: it would only rise up to become a tree, all grown and ready to strike.

If it weren’t for that group of young men, I wouldn’t be here today. If it weren’t for men, I would have died. But if it weren’t for men, I wouldn’t have survived, either.

2 - Act II Scene II

That night, it was those men who found me while going about their farming, feeling blessed to have found a goddess Lakshmi for their homes - one that carries love and light.

By saving me, they gave birth to the uprising.

(looking up from the page) And we need to show them that there is no stopping us.

What needs stopping is female foeticide.

What needs stopping is female infanticide.

What needs stopping is their (slowly) murderous and misogynistic mentality.

The same mentality that believes in dahej (dowry). The same mentality that suggests sons are like “assets” and daughters are like “liabilities.”

The same mentality that has led to millions of deaths, all masked behind politics and powerplay.

But we can’t let that continue.

3 - Act II Scene II

My father thought daughters were simply “mouths to feed, dowries to drain, burdens to bear.”

So why didn’t he stop practicing dowry? Why didn’t he let women in his family access an education?

He wasn’t a father, he was a hypocrite. And such hypocrites deserve jail.

They don’t deserve a place in our society, they don’t deserve a place in our homes.

They don’t deserve to be called “Dad.”

4 - Act II Scene II

So each time we watch out husbands, sons, fathers trying to kill what could’ve been our daughters or sisters, we call them out.

We tell the police, we tell the reporrters, we tell WHOEVER we can trust. We tell the NGOs, we tell our friends.

These people are there to support us. Our husbands don’t control what happens to our children.

Hold them accountable for what they do. There is no fear in telling the authorities when you are right. There is no fear in SAVING LIVES.

The battle is ours. We must fight for our rights, for our children’s rights.

Or else one day, there will be NO CHILDREN to fight for.

So rise up and raise your voice. Say no to infanticide, say no to foeticide, say no to dowry.

5 - Act II Scene II

(shouting, looking side-to-side at the audience) Because our girls DESERVE BETTER.

[An image is projected on screen - fifty women standing tall at a mahila gram sabha (women-only council) hand-in-hand in the green fields of Bibipur village, Haryana. Text is projected on the screen:

“The uprising is not just of bodies but of voices, of haunting memories, of a will to reclaim what was stolen and put an end to ruthless infanticide.

Because not everyone is lucky enough to be a seed. Most end up buried, and it is our job to put an end to that.”