POPULATION CONTROL IN INDIA – SOCIAL ISSUE
News: India
must build awareness on population control
What's in the news?
● Early
in December, two Members of Parliament of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Ravi
Kishan and Nishikant Dubey, introduced in the Lok Sabha a private member's Bill aimed at population control in India.
● Stating
that population rise is the most significant reason for India’s slow rate of
development, the Bill argues for an immediate need for population control.
● The debate around the
need for population control has been greatly politicized in India.
● The
entirety of this discourse around such a sensitive issue is often reduced to a
petty religious issue, and, ultimately, the subject of development suffers.
Key takeaways:
● The
debate and the discourse around India’s rising population is not recent, having
begun since Independence.
● India
was among the first nations to address its population problem as early as 1951,
raising awareness about the ills of overpopulation.
● While there has been a
significant rise in India’s population, there has also been a sharp decline in
India’s total fertility rate (TFR).
● In 1950, the TFR was at
around 5.9%, and is now 2% (fifth round of the National Family Health Survey,
or NFHS).
● There
was a steep decline after the 1970s, indicating an inversely proportional
relationship between economic prosperity and the fertility rate.
● Earlier
this year, the United Nations published data to show that India would surpass China as the world’s most populous country by 2023.
● According
to the 2018-19 Economic Survey, India’s
demographic dividend will peak around 2041, when the share of the working
age population is expected to hit 59%.
Causes of rising population:
● High
birth rate and low death rate.
● Early marriage practice
- causing longer span of fertility and reproductive activity.
● Illiteracy among females
causing troubles on reproductive health care.
● Rising
poverty rates lead to the belief that having more children will boost their
family income.
● Son-meta preference
- leading to the prevailing social pressure of having more male children along
with age-old social norms such as sons are breadwinners and caretakers for the
parents in their old age.
● Lack of awareness on
family planning.
● Poor contraceptive use.
● Agricultural
advancements leading to food security of the family and nation.
● Safer
pregnancies resulting from technological advancements.
● Improved
management of epidemics and better disaster management.
● Religious
attitude towards family planning.
Positive impacts of rising population:
● Economic
growth by means of increasing consumption.
● Increasing
availability of labor which paves
way for the phase of demographic dividend in India.
● Innovations
- Historical examples suggest that scarcity leads to several innovations
through research and development. Example:
Green Revolution enhances agricultural production resulting from the
rising food scarcity across the world in 1950-60s.
Negative impacts of rising population:
● Rising unemployment
and under-employment.
● Inadequate resources
trapping poor into poverty.
● Poor standards of living
such as lack of housing, food insecurity.
● Rising
inequality in income, land and several other resources.
● Increasing
expenditure on social welfare programs.
● Rising dependency rate
by increasing the ageing population - Due to fertility drops and lifespans rise
globally.
● Environmental
degradation resulting from depletion of natural resources by rising population.
● Dangers
of conflicts and wars through the
cause of instability in the society through the cases of starvation and famine.
Government Initiatives:
1.
India was the first country in the world to begin a population control program in 1952. It emphasized the use of
natural devices for family planning.
2.
In 1965 (Third Five Year Plan), the Family Planning Department was
established. The sterilization techniques for both men and women introduced in
India.
3.
The First National Population Policy
(Fifth Five Year Plan) was started in 1976. During this period, the age of
marriage for boys and girls was increased to 21 and 18 years respectively. The
forced sterilization was also introduced during this period, which was later
given up subsequently after criticisms.
4.
The Second National Population policy
was introduced in 2000 with a policy framework for achieving goals and prioritizing
strategies during the next decade to meet the reproductive and child health
needs of the people of India along with the target to achieve the net
replacement level (Total fertility rate).
● It
aims to control high population growth rate.
● It
also aims to stabilize the population by
2045.
● It
plans to bring the total fertility rate (TFR) to a replacement level of 2.1 by
2010.
● It
sets up the National Commission on
Population with the Prime Minister as Chairman and Chief Minister of states
as members.
5.
The National Population Stabilization
Fund was created in 2005 to support policies on population and reproductive
and health care.
6.
The Mission Parivar Vikas, 2017 was
launched to reduce fertility levels in 145 high focus districts having high
fertility rates in the country.
Measures to control population:
● Late
marriages.
● Moral
self restraint.
● Increasing awareness
among the population towards population control.
● Access
to reproductive and maternal health care.
● Women Empowerment
- Increasing literacy, education and awareness among women.
● Increasing access to
modern methods of population control such as contraceptives.
● Economic development
- Increasing skills and jobs offering economic growth which reduces poverty,
thus ultimately resulting in reduced population growth.
● Urbanisation
and the concept of nuclear energy needs to be enhanced.
● Societal changes
- Change in attitude towards male preferences.
WAY FORWARD:
1. Family welfare approach:
● We
need to move from a family planning approach to a family welfare approach.
● Enhancing
focusing on empowering men and women in being able to make informed choices
about their fertility, health and well-being.
2. Making population productive:
● It
is not about whether the population is large or small; it is about whether it
is healthy, skilled and productive.
● Skills are important,
but so is economic planning that ensures good jobs, agricultural productivity,
etc.
3. Address the issue of ageing:
● Estimates
show that 12% of India’s total
population by 2025 is going to be the elderly. Every fifth Indian by 2050
will be over the age of 65.
● Need
to figure out how to address ageing in the context of changing families and the
nature of state support in India and create conditions in which the elderly
population can have a healthy and happy life.
4. Invest in youths:
● India
certainly has the capacity to tap into
the potential of our youth population.
● There
is a brief window of opportunity, which is only there for the next few decades.
● India
needs to invest in adolescent well-being
right away, if we want to reap the benefits.
● It
is equally important to ensure good and quality education to the girls along
with improving employment opportunities for young women and increasing the female
employment rate.
● Otherwise,
our demographic dividend could turn easily into a demographic disaster.
5. Changing from population control to population
policy:
● India
needs to change our discourse around population policy. Although we use the
term population policy, population control still remains a part of our
dialogue.
● India
needs to align population policy towards
reproductive health for individuals.
● India
needs to orient the population policy towards enhancing population as resources
for India’s development, and change the mindset to focus on ensuring that the
population is happy, healthy and productive.
India needs to adopt population control measures.
But the focus should be on strengthening
public health infrastructure and raising awareness about the need for
population control.