In this year’s Independence Day
speech, our honourable Prime Minister encouraged us to show patriotism in a
different way. He highlighted the need for small families, with India facing
the biggest concern of population explosion. We see him proudly addressing our
nation as ‘savaso crore Bhartiya’,
but little do we realize that new Bhartiyas
are born in some or the other corner of the country every day and that savaso crore number will have to be
revised with a higher one someday.
We are a country where Kama Sutra originated and our population
is soon going to surpass China’s, yet we are tight-lipped when it comes to sex,
family planning and birth control. After all, a child is God’s gift. How can we
say ‘No’ to that? I remember an incident from one of my economics classes when
we were studying about stages of population growth. India is on the second
stage of demographic growth, where birth rate is high and death rate is low,
which is a stage of population explosion. Developed countries generally have a
low birth as well as death rate. While citing reasons for population explosion,
we came across one point in the book: Sex is the only source of recreation. The
student who was asked to read this point hesitated to say the three letter word.
It’s apparently embarrassing to use that word in public or we don’t want to
accept the grim reality of sex being recreational source for those who cannot
afford books, television, Netflix or watching movies in theatres. Another fact
that amazed me was that if people of my generation showed discomfort in saying
the word sex, what about the previous generations who never even found it
necessary to curb the ‘countless blessings’ they got from God? There are
certain families who go on expanding their lineage till a son is born to light
their funeral pyre, regardless of the kind of future the children will have in
terms of education and health.
I remember an advertisement campaign
of Idea 3G where the problem of population explosion was addressed in a light-hearted
way. The punchline was “India 3G busy toh
no abaadi”. It is the era of 4G today and we may expect 5G also soon, but
the burgeoning population still remains a problem at large. UN’s projections
that India’s population growth has stabilized and that in future the country’s
population will start declining are reassuring to some extent. Till the time
this decline is visible to the naked eye, the vicious circle of poverty and
unemployment that follow population explosion will continue.
Welcoming a newborn is a joyous occasion
for any family. As a nation, these ‘new additions’ mean expansion of existing
facilities by exploiting more resources. This bustling new generation
contributes to one of the factors of production i.e. labour to take the nation
on the path of development. On the contrary, this ever expanding bunch also
creates strain on other factor of production i.e. land, which is a limited
resource and is not going expand itself to feed the ever growing hungry mouths.
As this newborn grows up, he or she takes his or her first step in the world of
fierce competition by getting into a school. Nowadays school fees have
skyrocketed and are equivalent to salary packages of parents. But parents want
best for their children, so they admit their child in a school where all-round
development is promised. It has become a status symbol for parents to send
their children in state-of-the-art schools. I have heard of some parents having
sleepless nights over their children’s admission. These nights get worse once
the child clears his or her board exams and has to dive in the cut-throat
competition where even one percent more counts to push someone back and secure
admission in desired college. There are competitive entrance exams ahead with
lakhs of aspirants vying for IITs or IIMS or an institute of similar cadre. Same
story goes for jobs where there are innumerable applicants for few openings. In
such circumstances, most students pray for ‘mass recruiters’ who can hire them;
whether the job matches skill set does not matter in desperate times. Job
satisfaction looks like a distant dream, because money matters more than
anything else, especially when you have a large family to look after. With the
preponderant population, anyone is dispensable in the job and hence we may see
that in some companies the employees are not valued much. This is roughly the
life cycle of any Indian today caught in the web of competition, EMIs, crowded
trains and most importantly, survival.
There is however a brighter side seen
these days, if I may call it bright, optimistic that I am. With an increasing
number of educated women, a trend is seen that they prefer career over
children. Hence, like in developed countries, today Indian women, too, postpone
marriage and pregnancies to do well in career first. I think these are the baby
steps to bring population under control. With schooling becoming expensive
every year, the slogan ‘Hum do, humare
do’ also seems like an unaffordable plan in cities today as parents strive
hard to look after their only child, given the time crunch and challenges at
work. However, we still see some families turning a blind eye to curb
population growth till the rightful heir is born. The still prevalent cases of
female fetuses found in garbage dumps explains the poor sex ratio in India. In
such places ‘Beti badhao, beti padhao’ seems
like an apt message with a hope that these educated women in future contribute
to keep population in check.
Population of a country forms its
strength as human resources are valuable to bring about betterment in any form.
Measures have to be taken that this strength does not become a weakness or
burden on the economy in the long run. Maybe it’s time India adopted one child
policy too, and hopefully every family thanks God for a single blessing in form
of one child. India is a lucratively huge market, thanks to our very own
population. Businesses thrive on the life cycle of Indians- be it schools,
coaching classes, products and services or companies looking for affordable
labour. If we just don’t insist on having children of our own ‘flesh and blood’
or desire to establish genetic dominance like in animal kingdom, and instead
think of providing a better future to countless orphans who need love and
support in form of education and good health, we will soon emerge as a superpower
in terms of thinking. We will then be a nation of savaso crore happy, healthy and rational minds.
