Gita Ramaswamy (54) is not just someone who rebelled against her caste (Brahminism), against the state (she’s a former naxalite) and against the feudals of Telangana (she worked among bonded labour and the disempowered for two decade). She is also a researcher, writer and a publisher.  Of late, she has turned into a nightmare for the adoption agencies of Hyderabad who specialise in ‘harvesting’ girl children from Lambada communities in poverty-stricken Nalgonda and giving them into adoption in other countries, using mostly foul means  and in the bargain, making huge piles of moolah.

Gita is involved in ‘birth searches’, helping out Indian adoptees in searching for their biological parents.

Draining

Gita’s work on adoption and birth searches has taken her on a roller-coaster of emotions. The heart-wrenching and traumatic stories of both the adoptee and the biological parents have taken such a huge toll that Gita has stepped back a little. “It is an extremely draining experience. There’s a burn-out, I think. I am wary now,” says Gita. She helped in nine births searches including one in Mangalore.

Isn’t it like searching for a needle in a haystack? “It is easier in India than anywhere else. People are so involved with each other. Also they are very helpful, they take you from one village to another…the birth searches are like a mystery novel, one lead taking us to another, each step slowly unfolding the story,” says Gita.

For instance, a 14-year old girl who was adopted by German parents came looking for her biological mother in 2005. Based on her adoption papers, Gita found the village but nobody would tell her of any woman who had given away her daughter in adoption. With the help of a local Urdu daily, the child’s grandmother and then the mother were traced. A maid servant, the mother had given birth to the baby girl in a missionary hospital in 1991.

The hospital slapped her with a bill of Rs 15,000 and said if she could not pay, then she leave behind the baby.

The hospital, a part of an adoption agency, then gave off the baby for adoption.

Not all birth searches have happy endings. For instance, the adoptive parents chickened out after Gita found the mother and confirmed it with a DNA test. The biological mother calls up Gita every single day to find out if the promised letter from her daughter had arrived, if the promised visit to India would materialise soon. It has been three years and the mother has not failed to call up even once.

“I helped in searching for biological parents for three adoptive couples. But they dropped off, for whatever reason. I feel so angry…and very bad for the biological parents. It is like showing a hungry person a big spread of food and then telling her it is not meant for her,” says Gita, her eyes brimming.

Insecurity

She cannot understand why the adoptive parents feel so insecure about making connection with the biological parent/s. “Their children don’t speak our language, they surely will not be able to live in these conditions and therefore, not likely to return…Why cannot a child have two homes and two sets of parents? We always had aunts who were like mothers to us,” she says. She has given so much of herself to birth searches, so is it worth the effort in the end? “Every second spent is worth it,” asserts Gita. “Most importantly, every successful birth searches is a nail in the adoption agencies coffin as they claim that it is dangerous both for the child and the parent.”

Gita says the trauma of a child on discovering that she/he were abandoned is unimaginable and persists their entire life. She gets angry at the arguments put out by adoption agencies and adoptive parents that poor women willingly give away their daughters, or that poor have no business to ‘make’ children if they can’t bring them up. During her research in Lambada communities, Gita found a woman whose wrist was broken when she resisted her daughter being snatched away from her to be given for adoption.

Gita makes it clear that she is not against adoption per se. There are many abandoned children who need a home, love and care. But she is against ‘trade’ in children.