The excerpt is from “Importing Monstrous Morals,” now on WND.COM:

“In its contempt for women, India, our democratic ally, has advanced little since the time it practiced Sati, ‘the custom of burning a widow alive on the funeral pyre of her husband.’

Then, Western values had valiant defenders like General Sir Charles James Napier. When ‘Hindu priests complained to him about the prohibition of Sati by British authorities,’ Napier replied:

“Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.” (Via Wikipedia. )

Nowadays, our ‘national customs’ are exemplified by ‘enlightened’ observers—ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas, for example—who gather and disseminate spotty, decontextualized data, in this case, about “the systematic, widespread elimination of India’s baby girls.” Vargas traveled to India for the current affairs program ’20/20.’

Back in the 1800s, Napier understood “Sati” as a cultural barbarity.

In 2011, Vargas is somewhat vague. Critical faculties dulled by the belief in the equal worth of all cultures and peoples, Vargas failed to firmly finger the sacred cultural cow to which Indians sacrifice a million girls every year. (The Economist is more optimistic, putting the number of girls who go missing as a result of a gender preference for boys at 600,000.)

… poverty and lack of education play almost no role in this morally monstrous practice. …

In utero and outside of it, the elimination of women in India is not about what we here in the US call “reproductive rights.” This is about the right to life. In India, a woman’s life, fetus or fully formed, is worthless.

… Empirical proof of these impregnable positions was provided by the University of California, San Francisco. UCSF conducted a “qualitative study of son preference and fetal sex selection among Indian immigrants in the United States,” showing that “Indian immigrant women are using reproductive technologies and liberal abortion policies in the United States to abort female fetuses.” The study was published in Social Science & Medicine. Therein, the objects of observation are quoted as saying that, “There is such a thing as too many daughters, but not too many sons.”

The complete column is, “Importing Monstrous Morals.” Read it now on WND.COM.

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UPDATE (Dec. 16): Pam Maltzman: About the US getting India’s best and brightest: It’s probably the opposite, as those who come here are likely untouchables fleeing the cast-system in India and seeking a better station in life. It is well known, if not documented—for who would have the courage?—that Indians working in our massive high-tech conglomerates, as I stated in the column, are often very average in technical skills. They do, however, excel in exercising bureaucratic power; are quarrelsome, arrogant, and can talk up a storm. As soon as they are in positions of power, they are in the habit of hiring their own kind, often irrespective of merit, and to the detriment of The Other Kind. Massive companies, flush with billions, work much like government, within which fiefdoms with power structures develop. In these chieftainships, the relationship between productivity and profit is loose, at best. So long as the Chief has a good connection to the next top dog, he can chug along for years, before his little nexus collapses. Looking diverse is one of the main goals of the multinational with billions to blow. If a project collapses with a female at the helm, for example, a lot of musical chairs and cover-up action will ensue, as females are a prized minority too.