REWIND
New Delhi, 27 April 2023
The Population Imperative
By Dr. Karan Singh, M.P.
(Released on 31 March 1981)
The provisional population figures for the 1981 census have just been
released, and before commenting on the figures it is necessary to pay tribute
to the extremely efficient and prompt manner in which this massive task has
been successfully completed. The census in India is certainly the biggest such
exercise anywhere in the world, and the quiet efficiency with which it has been
undertaken could be a model for other countries. At a time when inefficient and
shoddy performance seems to have become the order of the day, the census
provides a refreshing contrast, and all concerned deserve warm commendation.
As was feared, the population growth over the last decade has been
very high, and our population since independence has almost exactly doubled. It
is quite clear that this order of population growth is disastrous as far as
eradication of poverty is concerned. The very real and remarkable achievements
to our credit in the last 30 years, particularly in the fields of agricultural
production and heavy industrialisaiton, have been largely nullified by the
exponential rate of population growth. If the present trend continues, and let
us remember that with the growth in total population the actual growth each
decade will necessarily be larger and larger, all our hopes of eradicating
poverty by the end of the century will turn out to be illusory.
Some years ago, soon after the World Population Conference at
Bucharest, the Ministry of Health and Family Planning had made three
alternative projections for India’s population in the year 2000. The most optimistic
projection was 850 million, but this implied a massive family planning
programme including at least 5 million sterilizations a year. The intermediate
projection was 925 million, while the most pessimistic projection was as high
as one billion. The total population in the year 2000 could thus vary by as
much as 150 million, depending on whether or not there is a national consensus
and a national will to tackle this problem in real earnest.
One of the most unfortunate casualties of the Emergency and
post-Emergency periods was the family planning programme. It is unnecessary to
go into the details at this stage, but it must be said that the National
Population Policy presented to the nation and adopted in April 1976 was a major
landmark in the history of population control throughout the world. The policy
not only dealt with various aspects of contraception, but with the much broader
and longer range, political, economic and educational implications of
population control. When it was adopted, the policy was hailed in many parts of
the world as perhaps the most important single document ever adopted by a
developing nation.
The tragedy was that soon thereafter family planning became linked
with political personalities and partisan rivalries. It became a major issue in
the 1977 General Elections, and after the Janata Party was swept to power
family planning became almost a dirty word.
Indeed the Government went so far as to change the name of the
Ministry itself from Family Planning to Family Welfare, and my distinguished
successor made a number of weird remarks with regard to family planning which
brought the whole concept into ridicule and gave a major setback to the entire
population control programme.
Whatever the exigencies of contemporary politics, it must now be
accepted that family planning can no longer remain a matter of political controversy.
It is nobody’s case that there should be compulsion, but a massive campaign of
motivation along with certain incentives at the individual and State levels is
certainly necessary if any headway is to be made. Simply to follow a leisurely
approach is to invite disaster. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare will
soon be coming out with its Annual Report, in which figures of sterilizations
will be mentioned. But my hunch is that the drastic drop in 1977 to almost 10%
of the 1976 figures has still not substantially improved.
Apart from various methods of contraception, including male and female
sterilization, what is required is a massive
educational campaign specially directed towards women and weaker sections of
society. The inverse link between female literacy and fertility has been
established beyond any doubt. A state like Kerala, which is economically not
among the most prosperous in India, nevertheless has done remarkably well in
the field of family planning mainly due to the high percentage of female
literacy. In the final analysis it is the woman who bears the main physical,
psychological and material brunt of raising large families, and it is therefore
in the mind of the Indian woman that the battle for family planning has
essentially to be fought.
Keeping in view the urgency of this matter, reinforced by the
provisional population figures of the 1981 census, I would make the following
concrete suggestions:-
1. The Prime Minister should call a special
meeting of the National Development Council to discuss the entire gamut of
population control policies, basing itself upon the 1976 National Population
Policy. At this meeting necessary decisions should be taken at the Central and
State levels to make whatever investment may be necessary to achieve the
desired reduction in population growth. Necessary provisions should be made in
the Sixth Five-Year Plan and the welfare of weaker sections.
2. Thereafter, the Prime Minister should
call a meeting of all Opposition Parties in Parliament and seek their
whole-hearted cooperation to make the population control programme a success. Ideally
this should be placed on par with such concepts as national security, national
integration and the welfare of weaker sections.
3. Voluntary organizations throughout the
country should be given special incentives to undertake family planning
programme, particularly such organizations as are working in the field of women
and child welfare.
4. The name of the Ministry of Health and
Family Welfare should be changed to the Ministry of Health and Family Planning
as a sort ofsymbolic gesture to show the nation that this problem is being
given the highest priority.
Let those of us who are living in the
twentieth century not forget our responsibility to the younger generations who
will be citizens of the twenty-first century, and to generations yet unborn.
Let us not forget that Australia, a country 2½ times the size of India, has a
total population of 14 million, which the size of India, has a total population
of 14 million, which equals the annual growth of population in India today. Let
us not forget that despite the great material resources with which nature has
endowed our country, these resources are not infinite and are already being
depleted at an alarming rate. And, finally, let us not forget that India is
still one of the poorest nations in the world, and that if there is to be any
chance of eradicating poverty in the foreseeable future, it will be essential
to take urgent and effective steps to reduce the rate of population growth.
There is a passage in ALICE IN WONDERLAND where she says that she had to run as
fast as she could to stay where she was. Unfortunately, at the rate we are
running at present we are steadily slipping backwards. ---INFA
(Copyright, India News & Feature
Alliance)
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