Since Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India, he has taken several positive initiatives and formulated a number of innovative schemes, including the ‘Make in India’ programme to encourage domestic investment and the ‘Clean India’ campaign. However, it is obvious that Modi has not stressed the importance of population control in the country, nor has he announced any measures or policies to control the alarming levels of population growth.
India has the second largest population in the world, and has been witnessing a high rate of growth for several decades. Although the government claims that it has achieved a stable fertility rate, many people do not think that these figures are adequate.
India participated in the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris with great enthusiasm and made impressive promises of launching renewable energy projects and a forestation scheme. However, Modi failed to address India’s surging population and his plan to check its growth. It is well known that high population density could contribute to ecological issues, particularly when such a huge population remains undernourished, without access to basic necessities and education. Unfortunately, no one at the climate conference raised the need for population control as a means to better ecological management, thus mitigating global warming and its related issues.
In India, as in many parts of the world, life expectancy is increasing due to improvement in medical technology and health care. While this increasing life expectancy is a positive sign, it should be admitted that such increase without adequate population planning in India will only lead to greater a density of people.
In a country like India, population planning can only be achieved by formulating and implementing a strong policy, particularly among less educated women. Women should be encouraged so that they can learn about family planning. Obviously, women’s empowerment has to be the central theme in population planning policies.
It is high time that the Modi government propagates a one-child norm among Indian families. While any force in this regard will be resisted by most people, and cannot be implemented in India in the same way as in China, education and persuasion methods are appropriate and necessary.
— The reader is an Indian founder trustee of an NGO based in Chennai, India
