Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao And …?

On a recent drive along the Ahmedabad–Vadodara–Mumbai expressway, I noticed something I’ve seen countless times before, a pattern on the backs of trucks. Two familiar lines: “Horn OK Please” and “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao.”

The latter was once the face of a massive movement, urging people to not kill their daughters before birth, and it was followed by urging them to educate them. And fair enough, considering how deep-rooted the sexism, orthodoxy, and religious conditioning in our society have been. But it made me wonder, what after that?

You saved a girl. You educated her. Then what?

In the same country where we worship goddesses, Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge; Lakshmi, of wealth; Ambe Mata, of ‘Shakti/Strength’... we still deny real women their space, their choices, and their voices. Even within families, a girl is treated as sacred, when she leaves for her husband’s home, her footprints are taken as symbols of Lakshmi leaving blessings behind. When she enters her new home, she’s welcomed as the bringer of prosperity. Some elders even touch the feet of brides to be for blessings.

So on one side, she’s revered like a goddess, and on the other, her freedom is restricted. She’s told what to wear, what to say, what to dream of. She’s taught to cook not as a life skill, but as a duty for her future in-laws. It’s as if we saved and educated her only to make her a “perfect bride” that is going to be someone else’s one day. 

For a long time, I believed this mindset existed only among the poor or the uneducated. But over time, I’ve realized it isn’t bound by class or education, it exists just as much, sometimes even more subtly, within wealthy and well-educated families.Many of these girls live like horses with blinkers, shown only what they’re meant to see. They accept the boundaries drawn for them, not realizing they can exist beyond them.

And i ask this question, Who’s responsible for this?

Maybe it isn’t about blaming anyone, but understanding how each generation has been shaped by the one before. A mother who once had to compromise her own freedom might still be learning what it means to help her daughter find hers. A father may have simply followed what he grew up seeing, not out of cruelty, but out of conditioning. And the daughter, perhaps she accepts it because she’s been taught that obedience is love, and silence is respect.

Sometimes, love is shaped more by protection than by freedom, and in trying to keep someone safe, we forget to let them truly live.

It’s not about fault; it’s about awareness. Someone, in some generation, has to pause and question it, so that the next one doesn’t inherit the same silence. Because if no one does, the pattern will only continue, quietly passed on in the name of tradition.

That’s why I’ve come to dislike words like society, caste, and religion. These were meant to bring us together, to give us identity, belonging, and direction, but somewhere along the way, they began to divide us instead. The very systems that were created for humans to unite and prosper have turned us into modern beings still carrying ancient fears and rigid beliefs. The rituals, the regions, the castes, all of it is fallible. None of it is beyond question. It must be challenged, rethought, and reshaped with time.

One generation must find the courage to break that cycle, so the next can truly prosper.

Yet I wonder, do they still dream of freedom, or have they learned to stop dreaming altogether? Because if the answer is no, then perhaps the deepest tragedy isn’t being denied freedom, it’s forgetting that you ever deserved it.