India's population control

Dr Y Udaya Chandar

(The writer can be contacted to yudayachandar@gmail.com)

On 11 July 2021, the World Population Day, Yogi Adityanath, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, unveiled his proposed Bill for UP, "UP Population (Control, Stabilization, and Welfare) Act 2021." The purpose of the Act is to discourage and prevent UP people from having more than two children. The Act envisages heavy incentives for those having one or two children and hefty penalties for those having more than two children. The Act also contains various provisions on the health and welfare of people; it also has conditions for Uniform Personal laws. He wants to bring in a demographic balance among different communities in the State. The CM invited comments and suggestions from the public on the Bill by 19 July 2021.

The Bill was appreciated by people for whom all the ills in the country are due to our unchecked population growth. They also think that we have reached a stage of population explosion.

There was also severe criticism of the Bill. Their arguments are: We have not yet reached a stage of population explosion; there is no need for such a draconian law when all the Indians are living happily and comfortably; the policy may lead to a rise in foeticide, illegal abortions, infanticide, and skewed sex ratio and in any case the rate of population growth in the country is declining. They also opined that the policy, if implemented, would put the health and well-being of women at risk. They have quoted the Chinese experiment, which is reversed from one-child norm to three-children norm.

Two BJP MPs, Ravi Kishore from UP and KirotilalMeena, a RajyaSabha MP from Rajasthan, announced that they would table a Private Member's Bill in the Parliament on the same lines in the Monsoon session of the Parliament. Anyway, nothing is happening on the above; it appears that their spirit has dampened due to the criticism some people aired.

These are not the first attempts to control the Indian population. The Central Government and the governments of States introduced a plethora of incentives for family planning. The governments offered even cash incentives for vasectomy and tubectomy. But none of these yielded the desired results. There is hope that the present UP Act would succeed because Yogi, a hard task-master, is handling it.

The Assembly elections in UP are due in 2022. The population policy may become a make-or-break issue for BJP. We do not know now how the UP electorate will react to this issue. If the BJP wins, the population Act wins. If it loses, that will be the end of the matter. The BJP is drawing on the present short lull on the Act to examine its impact on the coming year's elections.

The fact is that the Indians want more children because of various factors; many are not satisfied with two children, simply. Most want a son, and they keep trying for it, and in the bargain, produce more children. Even the educated people desire two sons and one daughter. Lately, some educated people with well-paid salaries are limiting the size of their children to one or two. This is because of the sky-rocketing cost of education, a good school is collecting more than two lakh rupees for pre-school admission in a big city.

Let me share an interesting episode that took place in India on 11 May 2000. On this day in the forenoon, some enthusiastic journalists reached Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi with flowers and sweets. They wanted to felicitate the Indian billionth baby born on that day, Asthana Arora, a baby girl. They did their job and went away. Was she the only baby born on that day? Anyway, answering such questions here is unnecessary. But we can be sure that on 11 May 2000, the Indian population became about 100 crores (1000 million) strong.

Size of our population and territory

At the time of our Independence in 1947our population was 361 million, and it was 318.6 million people counted during the 1941 census. The Indian population as of April 2021 is 1392.7 million, as per Wikipedia. In about 20 years, we have added about 400 million mouths, mostly unworthy and unwanted. If we go ahead with the same passion for giving birth to children, we may reach the 200 crore mark by 2050. However, our demographers are confident that our populace will stabilize sometime and not be 200 strong. Many Indians feel that we need not worry about our numbers, and there are no ill effects of this growth. Do they want to wake up when we reach 200 crores?

The Total Fertility Rate (TFR, births per woman) of India in comparison with other countries is as follows as per UN Population Division: India – 2.2, Whole World – 2.4, Bangladesh – 2.0, Brazil – 1.7, Canada – 1.5, China – 1.7, Nigeria - 5.3, Russia – 1.5, Singapore – 1.1, Pakistan – 3.5, UK – 1.6, Europe – 1.6, and the US – 1.7.

TFR for Hindus came down from 3.1 to 2.1 in 2000-2010; the TFR for Muslims decreased from 4.1 to 2.7. This stick is used frequently by the right-wing people in the country.

As per World Bank, Food and Agriculture Organization Data, the territory (most recent estimates) holdings in millions of sq. km. areas follow India – 2.97, Bangladesh – 1.3, Brazil – 8.3, Canada – 8.9, China – 9.4, Nigeria –0.9, Russia – 16.3, Pakistan – 0.8, the UK – 0.24, European Union – 4.0, and the US – 9.1.

India's population (in millions), when compared to other major countries, is as follows: China (2001) – 1277.6, India (2000) – 1028.7, the USA (2000) – 281.4, Brazil (2000) – 170.1 and Russia (2000) – 146.8.

India accounts for a meagre 2.4% of the world surface area of 135.79 million sq km. But it supports and sustains a whopping 16.8 per cent of the total world population of 6,055 million (Census of India 2001). The strength of Canada and Australia is negligibly small as compared to that of India.

The world's major countries, the Russian Federation is more than five times, Canada is over three times, the USA is 2.8 times, Brazil is 2.6 times, and Australia is 2.3 times as large as India. But their combined population is only 63 per cent of the total population of India.

Population-wise, the USA ranks third in the world after India; there is a yawning gap of 746 million between the populations of these two countries. The populace of the USA is only one-fourth of the people of India, although that country is almost three times larger than our country concerning the area.

The population in Uttar Pradesh alone (166 million) is more than the strength of the Russian Federation (146.9 million) and is almost equal to that of Brazil (170.1 million). Orissa has more people than Canada, and Chhattisgarh has a higher population than Australia.

As mentioned earlier, India supports as much as 16.87 per cent of the world's population. Whereas the USA, the third-largest country in the world population-wise, supports only 4.63 per cent of the world's population. Canada and Australia do not support even one per cent of the world's total population.

China, with territory three times that of India has about the same size in population as India, and China wants more and more land by any means. India has no such ambitions.

Land fragmentation

India has been undergoing land fragmentation of a high order. A farmer with three hectares of land and three sons will distribute his three hectares among his three sons, and each possesses one hectare. See what happens when these sons have to divide their land among their more than one son. Land fragmentation has many ill effects, starting with uneconomical farming.

In 2010-11 India had 117.25 million small (less than 1 hectare) land holdings, and it had come to 125.86 million in 2015-16. Due to fragmentation, the average land per person in a rural household is 0.2 hectares in 2015-16.

Availability of water

India accounts for 17% of the world's population and about 4% of the world's water resources. India experiences average precipitation of 1,170 millimetres (46 in) per year, or about 4,000 cubic kilometres (960 cubic meters) of rains annually or about 1,720 cubic metres (61,000 cu ft) of freshwater per person every year. Some 80% of its area experiences rains of 750 millimetres (30 in) or more a year. However, this rain is not uniform in time or geography.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has suggested 135 litres per capita per day (lpcd) as the benchmark for urban areas. For rural areas, the JalJeevan Mission has fixed a minimum service delivery of 55 lpcd, which may be enhanced to a higher level by the States. These quantities are grossly inadequate when compared with world data.

India currently stores only 6% of its annual rainfall or 253 billion cubic meters (8.9×10cu ft), while the developed nations strategically store 75% of the yearly rainfall in arid river basins. India relies excessively on groundwater resources, which caters for over 50% of the irrigated area with 20 million tube wells installed. About 15% of India's food is grown using rapidly depleting/mining groundwater resources. The end of the era of massive expansion in groundwater use will demand greater reliance on surface water supply systems.

India is not running out of water, whereas water is running out of India without extracting its full potential benefits. Land-based water reservoirs construction is very costly after meeting the land and property compensation and rehabilitation expenditures.

Despite adequate average rainfall in India, there is a large area under fewer water conditions/drought-prone. There are a lot of places where the quality of groundwater is not good. Another issue is the interstate distribution of rivers that serve 90% of India's territory. It has created several conflicts across the states and to the whole country on water sharing issues.

Out of India's 3,119 towns and cities, just 209 have partial treatment facilities, and only 8 have full wastewater treatment facilities (WHO). One hundred fourteen cities dump untreated sewage and partially cremated bodies directly into the rivers. The filthy conditions in both urban and rural areas in the country are due to inadequate water availability. India now ranks 133rd in the world concerning the amount of water available per person per year.

Poverty in India

India ranks 94th among 107 countries in terms of hunger and is in the 'severe' hunger category according to the Global Hunger Index 2020. According to the study, 14% of the population is undernourished. Last year the GHI rank of the country was 102 out of 117 countries. India has around 84 million people living in extreme poverty, which makes up ~6% of its total population as of May 2021. A 2020 study from the World Economic Forum found "Some 220 million Indians sustained on an expenditure level of less than Rs 32/ day — the poverty line for rural India — by the last headcount of the poor in India in 2013".

According to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) program, 8 million people out of 1.2 billion Indians, roughly equal to 6.7% of India's population, lived below the poverty line of $1.25 in 2018–19.

In 2014, the Rangarajan Committee said that the population below the poverty line was 454 million (38.2% of the population) in 2009-2010 and 363 million (29.5% of the population) in 2011–2012. Deutsche Bank Research estimated that there are nearly 300 million people who are in the middle class. In 2012 around 170 million people, or 12.4% of India's population, lived in poverty (defined as $1.90 (Rs 123.5)). In their paper, economists Sandhya Krishnan and Neeraj Hatekar conclude that 600 million people belong to the middle class or more than half of India's population. About 16% of Indians live in slums scattered all over the country.

According to Oxfam, India's top 1% of the population now holds 73% of the wealth, while 670 million citizens, comprising the country's poorest half, saw their wealth rise by just 1% in the decade 2010-2020.

According to the revised World Bank methodology, India had 179.6 million people below the new poverty line, and China had 137.6 million. The world had 872.3 million people below the new poverty line on an equivalent basis as of 2013. In other words, while having 17% of the world's population, India had a 20.6% share of the world's poor.

Unemployment

India's employment situation during Covid 19 period, starting with March 2020, is altogether a different phenomenon. So the unemployment situation before the Covid 19 is discussed here. India has not been able to lay down parameters to define 'unemployment.' In absolute terms, according to the various Indian governments between 1983 and 2005, the number of unemployed persons in India steadily rose from around 7.8 million in 1983 to 12.3 million in 2004–05. The unemployment rate in India had increased from "7.3% in 1999–2000 to 8.3% in 2004–5", states the World Bank report. While the Indian economy has been shifting from being predominantly agriculture employment-based to one where the employment is a mix of agriculture, manufacturing, and services; the economy has largely seen a "jobless growth" between the 1980s and 2007. The services-based industry has not been "particularly employment-intensive." The rapid growth of the service sector has not addressed the unemployment and under-employment problems in India – and the job needs of its growing population – between 1983 and 2010. According to the Pew Research Centre, a significant majority of Indians consider the lack of employment opportunities as a "gigantic problem" in the country. "About 18.6 million Indians were jobless, and another 393.7 million worked in poor-quality jobs vulnerable to displacement," states the Pew report in 2018-19.

The National Sample Survey Office report states that male youth had an unemployment rate of 17.4% and 18.7% in rural and urban areas, while women youth had 13.6% and 27.2%, respectively, in 2017-18. However, the think tank of the Government of India, NITI Aayog, says that these are not official, and the data is not yet verified. The Indian labour force is estimated to be growing by 8 million per annum, but the Indian economy is currently not producing new full-time jobs at this rate

The role of Sanjay Gandhi

Sanjay Gandhi (14 December 1946 – 23 June 1980) was an Indian politician and the son of Indira Gandhi. He was expected to succeed his mother as head of the Indian National Congress. But following his early death in a plane crash, his elder brother Rajiv became their mother's political heir and succeeded her as Prime Minister of India after her assassination. Sanjay Gandhi played a vital role in the Indian population's history.

Sanjay Gandhi was a revolutionary in his way and a visionary. At an early age, he had realized that the uncontrolled Indian population multiplication was taking India backwards and was determined to curb the growth in any way. He had launched a massive campaign to reduce the population growth and resorted to the coercion of the people. His followers, in their over-enthusiasm, overdid it to meet the targets laid down from the top. They resorted to negative means, including forced sterilization to curb the population explosion. They even took unmarried males to Family Planning centres and carried out vasectomy operations forcibly in the late 1970s. This resulted in adverse propaganda for himself, his mother, and the Congress party.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed the 'emergency' because of various factors on 25 June 1975. It resulted in many damaging outcomes of immense magnitude for Indira Gandhi and the Congress party. Because of this and Sanjay Gandhi's actions, the Congress party lost the General elections in 1977; Indira Gandhi too was defeated.

As far as population control, Sanjay Gandhi's intentions were good, but the means he adopted was detesting. After that, no politician was courageous enough to speak about population control until the new breed Uttar Pradesh Chief MinisterYogi Adityanath entered the scene.

Hope better sense prevails over all Indians.