15th November Early in the morning the world’s population has officially touched 800 crores. A baby girl named Vinis Mabanzak, who was born in a hospital in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, was considered a world treasure of at least 800 million.
On this ‘800 Crore Day’, India’s population is 141.20 million and China’s population is 142.60 million. Next year, India will overtake China to become the most populous country in the world. After that India will remain permanently in that place for a long time.
At a time when Indians are worried about population growth, Russian President Vladimir Putin attended the ‘Mother Heroine’ award show. It was a Soviet-era custom to award ‘Mother Heroine’ to Russian women who had more than 10 children. Bringing back the custom after 30 years, Putin urges Russians to “have more children”. Along with this award, a prize of 13 lakh rupees is given. Russia has tax breaks for large families.
In France, scholarships are awarded to families with more than two children. Having a baby in Italy can get government funding. China, which introduced the ‘one child per family’ law in 1979, canceled it in 2015. Offered to have two children.
Many countries with declining birth rates are thinking about increasing their population. The reason is simple. The working-age population in these countries is shrinking significantly. This slows down economic growth. The number of retired seniors has increased. Taking care of them becomes a huge burden on the government and the families.
Meanwhile, the population of poor countries continues to grow. The United Nations is concerned that the world’s 46 poorest countries are experiencing the fastest population growth. India is not on that worry list. But population is a constant topic of debate here. Even recently, RSS leader Mohan Bhagwat had said that family control should be enforced uniformly across all communities. In India, the Muslim population continues to grow. Although many experts refuted this by pointing to the National Family Health Survey statistics of the Union Health Department, the campaign did not stop.
On the other hand, many states have enacted separate family planning laws. Government jobs are not available for people with more than two children in Assam. A bill is under consideration in Uttar Pradesh that would stop government welfare benefits for those with more than two children.
Several cases have been filed in the Supreme Court saying that ‘a law should be made that Indians should not have more than two children’. Bills have been brought in Parliament 35 times so far. The last time in 2019, Health Minister Mansukh Mandavia spoke a truth when a BJP MP named Rakesh Sinha brought an individual bill. ‘Awareness campaigns have given better results than compulsory family control methods. “The birth rate in India is decreasing,” he said.
India has already experienced the scourge of forced family planning. Indira Gandhi’s son, Sanjay Gandhi, who came in with all-powers to keep him in power during the Emergency, considered it his dream project. Sanjay said that ‘India’s population should be reduced in one year’, and as a way to do so, he introduced the family control surgery for men called Vasaktami.
In April 1976, a law was introduced in Parliament for this purpose. UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, North India was then identified as ‘Vasakhtami Belt’. Each state competed with other states to perform surgeries. Government offices, schools, railway stations, etc. became temporary surgical camps. Young and middle-aged people arriving and alighting by train were forcibly dragged to the camp and subjected to surgery. Government employees were told that they can get promotion only if they do Vasakdami. Vocabulary has also been made compulsory for driving license, sales tax license for traders etc. 83 lakh family planning surgeries were performed in two years. It was mostly the poor who were forcibly dragged along to reach the destination. This led to riots in many places.
After the emergency period this changed and the target was set for health workers. Now that the targets have been removed, we have reached a point where awareness campaigns are enough.
As a measure of population, they have a measure called Total Fertility Rate (TFR). It indicates how many children a woman of childbearing age will have. If this TFR is 2.1, it means that the population in the country is balanced without increasing. That is, it is calculated that husband and wife together get 2.1 children. As far as childbirth and childhood mortality go, the population is balanced because two people combine to make only two people.
“As per National Family Welfare Survey 2015-16 India’s TFR is 2.2. India’s 31 states and Union Territories have achieved the equilibrium target of 2.1. Tamil Nadu in particular has achieved this level 12 years earlier. Tamil Nadu’s population is set to decline in the next 10 years. However, UP, States like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand are increasing the population burden of the nation.
Population growth can have two effects. When countries like Singapore and South Korea grew in population, they used it for economic growth. So progressed. African countries like Nigeria, Congo, Tanzania are suffering from the problem. Poverty, famine, unemployment, diseases, etc. are likely to increase when the grassroots do not get anything. Due to the lack of opportunities for the younger generation, riots occurred in countries like Tunisia, Egypt and Syria.
The identity of ‘world’s number 1 country in population’ is important. When China got it, it used its manpower to become the world’s manufacturing powerhouse. It is still there today. A country with such a population would also become the largest market in the world. It is the area with the largest number of customers in the world for any product. China kept this market untouched by multinationals and created local companies.
The question is what are we going to do? A country’s economic and social life improves when the number of middle class people increases. Both market consumption and urbanization are largely driven by the middle class. India introduced an open economy policy in 1991. 30 years later, now 30% of India’s population is middle class, according to a study by PRICE. Actually more than this must be middle class. But the middle class has not seen the growth that the super rich have had.
India has the largest working age population in the world. 68% of India’s population is in the age group of 15 to 64 years. That means there are about 95 crore people of working age. India’s development lies in what opportunities we are going to give them.
A rise of hundreds of crores!
The human population has been growing since the dawn of time and reached 100 million in 1803. Rapid growth thereafter. Here’s the speed of reaching 800 crores:
(Population in Crores)
Exploiting resources!
Let’s say that if one budgets his income and spends, he can last till the 25th. If it costs more than that, you have to take a loan. This earth also renews a certain amount of resources every year. We quickly exhaust everything that the earth gives in a year such as fish, water and grains. And then we exploit the resources. It causes huge ecological deficit.
Earth Overshoot Day is a measure of how quickly we deplete the Earth’s resources in a year. In 2020 it falls on August 22. After that till December 31st we put great pressure on the earth. Last year it came on July 29. We passed this year’s Earth Overshoot Day on July 28. Population growth is a major reason for this.
When will the proliferation stop?
Birth rate is higher than death rate every year. 13 crore 40 lakh children were born in 2021. 6 crore 90 lakh people died. The population increased by 6.9 million during that year.
They say that 13 to 14 crore children may be born every year for the next 30 years. After 2050, the birth rate will decline. At the same time, as the world’s population continues to age, the death rate will increase. At some point after 2100 the two numbers will be equal. Then the population will stop growing.
Losing political power!
The southern states of India have better population control than the northern states. While it has helped development, it has also had another negative effect. It is the decline of political power.
MP and MLA constituencies are redelineated from time to time on the basis of population. Now the Central Government is building a new Parliament complex with the intention of increasing the number of MPs in the Parliament. Here 888 seats are set up in the Lok Sabha. The Rajya Sabha will have 384 seats,” Parliament Speaker Om Birla said recently.
Currently there are 543 MPs in the Lok Sabha. It was said that this number would be increased before the 2024 parliamentary elections. But, the 2021 census was not held in India due to Corona. After this, if the 2031 census takes place, the constituencies may be redefined based on that. Northern states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, where population growth is not constrained, will get more MPs then. Southern states including Tamil Nadu have managed population better. The MP number of these will decrease. Already in 1962, there were 41 MPs in Tamil Nadu. Due to population decline this number dropped to 39. This ratio may decrease further in future. Then the number of people echoing the voice of Tamil Nadu in Delhi will decrease.
India’s seven northeastern states together have just 24 MPs. This is why their voice is not heard in Delhi. This is one of the reasons why those states face boycott. A similar situation may also occur in Tamil Nadu. That is why Tamil Nadu is protesting that ‘MP constituencies should not be defined only on the basis of population’.