A bit more on the de-valueing of females in Hindu culture, from the link in my previous message.

Countless newborn daughters are still killed immediately after birth, especially in the states of Rajasthan, Bihar and Tamil Nadu. In the villages of Bihar, a midwife is paid 10 rupees for delivering a boy, five for a daughter - and 100 rupees if she immediately kills the female infant at the family's orders. Since it has become possible to determine the sex of a fetus in utero, tens of thousands of female fetuses are aborted every year. The laws forbidding this are likewise neither obeyed nor enforced.
...

The Supreme Court has repeatedly admonished lower courts to consider, in cases of rape, that in India's strongly patriarchal society, which places a high value on a woman's chastity and ostracizes raped women, a woman or girl would not bring such charges lightly and thereby risk her reputation and her chances of marriage." end quote

The strong Hindu patriarchy as described above applies to Hindu culture anywhere in the world, including Bangladesh. The plight of women and untouchables is degrading.

From the age of 10 to 18 I sponsored a young girl in southern India who would not have had an education without my monthly donation for her welfare. Her family was living at the lowest level because of their status in the culture, her father a TB patient and unable to work. She was educated, sent me letters and pictures, growing into a young woman who was literate and skilled as a seamstress. Without the education provided by a US organization called Compassion International, her fate would have been bleak.

Alice