India just about overtook China in population strength, as the UN has somewhat confirmed this week. In a technical sense, there could be some if’s and but’s, but we are definitely there. Arguments of late are that population growth is acceptable under certain situations – like, when the working-age population is more than the non-working and ageing mass. The demographic dividend should be to India’s advantage in the context of its eminent youth power. Nearly one-fifth of the population is in the 15-24 age-group, nearly 65 per cent of the population (including children) is under age 35; and nearly 70 per cent of the population is in the working age of 15 and 54. The catch in this is that around half of India’s population is non-working – comprising men without work and more women being engaged in household chores and child-rearing, and not directly contributing to the productive sectors of the economy.
At a time when China started its growth push under the commune system, kitchens were common for each hamlet and women mostly went into the fields or factories to work, leaving aside their children in baby-care facilities under a well-shaped new social order. China eventually banished poverty and today its economic might is five times that of India. Through governmental intervention, China created conditions for its people to work. It promoted exports with rare zeal and made the nation the world’s main production line. India does not have a governance system that can match such energy, drive or vision. Lotus-eaters are one too many here and inaction as a tradition is more appreciated than action. Fact is also that the youth power as a demographic dividend for India at this time presages a time when all these youths would turn old and crave for support from the establishment for their sustenance; a scary scenario for the future.
Over the past few decades, China created substantial wealth for the country by making its people work. Its now-discarded one-child family planning policy halted population growth for decades. China has by now acquired the economic prowess to care for its old for long years. Beijing rightly responded to the present UN rating that put India above it, by saying quality of the people is more important than quantity. It has taught its people skills to remain productive. Here, the Skill India initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi aims precisely at that. Yet, for many in this country, by volition or otherwise, procreation is the main recreation. Some social/religious segments are defying calls for family planning. The establishment must wake up to such realities, first and foremost, and act.