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:-
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- The name of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare should be changed to the Ministry of Health and Family Planning as a sort of symbolic 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
