At a time when the Modi government and state after state vacillated for a year and a half in the name of Covid pandemic, shut offices and engagingly set in a holiday mood across the nation, the Uttar Pradesh government of Yogi Adityanath is scripting a different tale. The state has come up with a population policy. Short of effecting a legal bar on excessive procreation, it sends out the right signals to the society at large. Uttar Pradesh is the fourth largest in land area and carries with it the largest population size. Its population per square kilometre is about 850 against a national average of 450. This is posing serious problems — even after the bifurcation of the northern UP districts and formation of the Uttarakhand state in the Year 2000. The population policy aims to deny several rights to those who do not conform to family planning norms. Members of such families cannot hold any elected post and cannot get government jobs, among other proposed curbs.
Prima facie, the new policy may be interpreted by some quarters as part of the Hindutva brigade’s penchant to target Muslims or cause discomfiture to them. As a matter of fact, large numbers of Muslim families are reticent about such planning at home. This has been a normal practice for them for ages and this is happening across the geographical spectrum and across continents. Yet, notably, large segments of the educated among this community too are ignoring diktats from mullas, realizing the ill effects of large family size and limiting child births. Other than for well-off families, proper upbringing of children is not an easy task. In Japan as also in European nations, the social trend now is not only against procreation but also against marriage. People want to have a free life and be done with it. Even in China, this trend is catching up in Shanghai and elsewhere as hiring a space for a family life is unaffordable. India, tied to its old traditions, is a different ball game. Many Hindu families too are not giving due regard to family planning norms and there are large-scale procreations. China brought rules half a century ago to limit the number of children for a couple to one, to start with, and later to two. Now, faced with a geriatric population bulge, and factories requiring hands, it is liberalizing the scene. Serving national interests is important. It’s as important as taking care of our personal interests. UP shows the way.
