The Great Denial: India’s Burgeoning Population

The French phrase ‘fait accompli’ literally means “an accomplished fact”, something that has already happened and cannot be changed now. That perhaps best describes the Indian attitude towards its burgeoning population. We overtook China in this respect a year back in April 2023. When the milestone figure was reached, the whole affair was underplayed except for some loose statements about a particular community being the primary culprit towards this so-called achievement.

Before we deliberate any further on the subject, reviewing a few statistics would be in order. As per the UN figures on the Worldometer website, India’s population figure today stands at 145.69 crores which works out to be 17.78% of the world’s population.

The corresponding population density is 488 people per sq Km. The density stats also puts us way up, with only a much smaller Bangladesh, beating us to the pole position. We are still growing at 0.89 percent which works out to be an increase of about 1.3 Crores every year. Something like adding an Australia every two years.

Notably the world’s population has itself increased significantly in the last 100 years. A look at the numbers below will give us a fair idea of the rate of multiplication of the human race:

1 Billion (1804)   6 Billion (1998)
2 Billion (1930)   7 Billion (2010)
3 Billion (1960)   8 Billion (First half of 2022)
4 Billion (1974)   9 Billion (Predicted 2037)
5 Billion (1986)   10 Billion (Predicted 2060)

The key parameter that matters in demographics is the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) which is the average number of children that are born to a woman over her lifetime. No one factor can be singularly held responsible for a certain TFR. However, the most common corelations of fertility exist with levels of economic development, urbanization, gender inequality, female education & employment and access to contraceptives.

Most of these factors get clubbed together in what is called the Human Development Indices. Fertility therefore gets linked to development in a way. Karan Singh’s famous one liner at the United Nation in 1974 still holds good when he said, “Development is the best contraceptive.” It is an established demographic paradox that more a societal group can afford more children, the lesser progeny they wish to have.

In a similar but amusing vein, another scholar derived an inverse corelation between availability of electricity supply in the evening hours in certain states to their population growth.

In simple terms, a population that maintains a TFR of about 2.1 over an extended period is able to sustain itself provided the mortality rates are also brought down. This is because it may take numerous generations for the TFR to show its effect in terms of birth rate, due to what is termed as population lag effect. This is precisely the reason why we are continuing to increase although our TFR has already touched 1.98-2.0.

Prior to 1800, although the Total Fertility rate used to be pretty high (5-6), it used to be offset with a corresponding high mortality rate especially infant mortality. With massive improvements in medical science, life expectancy has gone up tremendously. So even with a significant drop in TFR, the population has continued to increase. So much so, that the world population has almost doubled in the last 50 years. With current trends of reducing growth rates in vogue, the peak is predicted to be around 2084-2100.

National efforts to control population by enforcement actions have generally failed all over the world. Romania and China are the prime examples. India also dabbled with the concept during the Emergency days with the infamous sterilization effort. China in fact, had to do an absolute volte-face from its one-child policy as the results proved to be counter-productive.

At this point, it would be interesting to read Mohan Bhagwat’s recent statement on the issue. The RSS Chief said, “The population policy of India, decided around 1998 or 2002, states that the population growth rate should not be below 2.1. We need more than two, that is three, that’s what the population science says. This number is important because it (society) should survive.”

“It is true that the higher the population, the greater the burden. If the population is used properly, it becomes a resource. We also have to consider how many people our country can feed and support after 50 years. Population imbalance leads to changes in geographical boundaries.”

“Population control and religion-based population balance is an important subject that can no longer be ignored. So a comprehensive population policy should be brought and should be equally applicable to all. Only then rules pertaining to population control will yield results.”

The welcome part is that for the first time in many decades that this issue is being acknowledged publicly. However, Mohan Bhagwat is both right and wrong as he tries to mix politics and demography with generalizations. Right in the sense that a TFR below 2.1 will indeed lead to a gradual reduction in the population. But the key question is optimum utilization of this resource especially when we are passing through the demographic dividend stage.

India occupies 2.41% of the world’s land area but supports close to 18% of the world’s population. So are we happy being a 145 crore nation increasing to 168 Crore by 2050 and even more? Or do we need to gradually scale down to a more manageable figure where our chances of survival are in fact better with improved standards of living and health care? A bigger cake for a smaller party!

Politically, a subtle corelation of our population growth with a certain religion/ community is constantly being done. Not entirely incorrect in relative terms but the same communities’ further corelation with lack of education & development and poverty is conveniently ignored. A very understated political message of ‘the fear of being outnumbered one-day’ is being passed across to continue multiplication unabated.

At the time of the partition, the total Indian population was approximately 30 crore. Today it is 145 crore and increasing. The community being referred to is today close to 20 crores. Even if the population of the community under scrutiny had Nil population at the time of partition, where has the additional 95 crores (145-30-20) come from? Something to ponder over.

The soothsayers are basking in the glory of us being the biggest consumer market in the world. However, the reality is that we are bursting at our seams with our economy, infrastructure, governance, education, health services, policing and many other associated attributes lagging far behind. It is not hurting as we are happy with just survival and shifting responsibility with warped justifications and flawed hypothesis.

The looming spectre of a huge ageing population and unimaginable quantum of their health-care needs in another four decades after the demographic dividend, does not appear to have registered. All round depletion of natural resources, including fertility of soil, water, petroleum and minerals is a natural corollary for a not-too-distant future.

Further, no rules regarding population control as suggested by the RSS Chief are going to work in a mammoth democracy like India. So is it a fait accompli that we accept mutely? Well not exactly. The key lies in indirect influence, the primary being, ‘Education, Education, Education’, especially of the girl child. Only thing is that such a national program must be extremely relentless and focussed which goes beyond lip-service and affiliations.

Every educated girl will thus grow up to be aware of her physical requirements and limitations besides being financially self-reliant. Once confident on taking on this patriarchal dominated society, she will ensure that her pregnancy is a conscious choice and not something that is thrust upon her as a gender commitment or compulsion.

Besides uninhibited contraceptive availability, the effort has to be aided by top class pre-natal and post-natal care. That would make her confident that her progeny will survive. With such a comprehensive approach, an inevitable socio-cultural impact on successive generations and so also on development is bound to happen.

It is realistic to expect that universal education for the female gender will take generations to achieve. But education need not come from higher literacy always. In today’s digital age, there is no dearth of constructive and useful information about family planning and reproduction that can be transmitted through social media and many other forms of digital transmission.

Summing up, we need to get out of the denial mindset that we do not have a demographic problem. We certainly have one but it is not a battle of the civilizations but an existential socio-economic issue. Solutions also exist but they lie in changing our political lenses and re-fixing our priorities.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Air Vice Marshal Rajeev Hora is a Qualified Flying Instructor and an Experimental Test Pilot with over 3800 flying hours on multiple types of aircraft. His last appointment was as AOC HQ MAO at Mumbai. Previously held appointments are AOC Adv HQ WAC (Jaipur), Comdt Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment (ASTE), Deputy Comdt AFA, AOC AFS Bidar and Deputy Technical Manager (Air) in the Acquisition Wing of MoD. He has earlier commanded a Jaguar squadron and was also the Team Leader of the IAF’s Hawk Aircraft Project Team in the UK.


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