Population Control must for India

Panacea to India’s success is not just economy; population control too needed.

Emerging from the exploitative British occupation, India struggled for over seven decades to uplift its masses from poverty and achieve economic success. However, results have been mixed so far.

We started with 5 years plans with socialist leanings emphasising on public enterprise. While the approach is not entirely fruitless, the license Raj has stifled the private enterprise while the PSUs bred inefficiency and corruption. The 1990s opened gates to economic reforms as the key to robust growth. It succeeded to a large extent but the half-hearted, half-baked piecemeal reforms did not unleash the full potential.

The new millennium was ushered in with new dreams and we exulted its India’s century, the time has come. And two decades of it is over already! Where is the fault? Corruption, casteism, religious escapism, poor literacy, inadequate social infrastructure, substandard education system, etc., are to blame. Yes but we can change them and we are trying since last 70 years! A failure of Indian society and state despite tall claims of reaching to Mars and ruling the world with our IT. Did we not try well? We did. Then, why?

There is one thing which most politicians, influencers, policymakers and nowadays, the social media and TV news channels tend to gloss over if not rubbishing it outright is failure on population control front.

Lets discuss about over-population causing environmental stress on our planet to another time. Our population which grew from 30 million at the time of independence to 130 million now is straining our meagre resources and running the finances thin.

To root out corruption, casteism, religious escapism, and other social maladies in any conservative and Hobblesian society like ours, reaching out to people and bringing about social change is extremely difficult. If this is coupled with the large population of India its next to impossible. Trying to change our fortunes vis-a-vis poor literacy, inadequate social infrastructure, substandard education system, etc., would also be more succesful in smaller nations.

In tune with our size, even if governments somehow launch operations on a comparable scale, if the high rate of growth of population continues it would be difficult to achieve targets.

Any casual look at population dynamics will reveal that the population growth is more accentuated in poorer sections, making it imperative to make population control a part of poverty alleviation measures. In another dimension, population control in general would bring bigger pie of development to everyone’s table.

Hence, instead of harping on the so-called demographic dividends, drafting a sound policy for population control based on both incentives and punitive measures must be a permanent and prominent part Indian developemnt politcs. Only then Indias pursuit of equitable growth would cease to be perpetual chase of a shifting goal post and make the gains tangible at individual level across society.