Policies change as situations change; so too with the present thinking on ‘readjusting’ India’s concepts about population growth. The call by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for families to have three children, instead of the prevalent concept of two, should lead to a serious debate. He has stressed the point that the present rate of population growth for India at 2.1 would lead to a steady fall in people’s numbers. Most developed nations, mainly in Europe, are faced with a serious fall in birth rates as the young people there are not keen on marriage and having children. Russia has begun offering cash incentives to pregnant schoolgirls to boost its falling population strength. Japan is faced with a problem of a greying population; all for the same reason. The Islamic nations, on the other hand, are seeing a population explosion. Muslims in India too are steadily raising their numbers.
Some 60 years ago, India engaged itself in a drive to control its fast-paced growth in population, which was then in the range of 55 crore. The alleged excesses during the Emergency in the 1970s, at the behest of Sanjay Gandhi, when the poor were herded to Family Planning camps and forcibly subjected to vasectomy operations on them, led to an eruption of anger. Following this, successive governments did not care much for population control. Today, India has the world’s largest population numbering around 1.45 billion – a three-fold growth since the 1970s. Conversely, the concept about population control in China took a different turn recently– long after it imposed strict population control steps and forced families to have no more than two children. Today, China is encouraging its people to produce more children as it is faced with a fall in the number of young people – whose energy drives national growth.
India now boasts of having the largest mass of young people, but they are not being put to productive use. Their energies are being wasted due to lack of production lines or employment opportunities. China used its manpower and emerged as an economic super power. India aspires to be a super power but has no visionary leadership to tap the energies of its working-age population. Rather, they are fed with subsidized ration and being turned into lazy bums. In future, when the present large mass of youth get older, the nation will not have the wherewithal to feed them. In sum, the theories of Thomas Robert Malthus and John Meynard Keynes, propounded in the 19th and 20th centuries respectively, must be seen, analysed and comprehended in the context of new emerging realities. What they had stated made eminent sense in their immediate contexts. That India is celebrating its population explosion and is seeking to stem a likely reduction in population are curious tales. Malthus said pestilence and war were natural ways to control population; Keynes said technological interventions would relieve population pressure. Today, war is not killing a lot; Covid-19 was checked by technology.
