Indian Journal Development Research and Social Action 2011 Volume 7 * Number 1-2

Jan-Dec, 2011 * pp.143-156

Population Explosion in India:

Need for Optimum Population
Tanima Choudhuri*

Abstract

The escalating problem of population explosion in India and the deleterious

consequences of such growth on the quality of our life have now been widely recognized.
Although human resource is considered very significant in the contemporary world, any
sustainable society also requires an optimum population to realise the goals of equity
and efficiency. Population is a pre-requisite to development only to the extent that a
society requires more manpower to carry out its developmental activities. But where this
is not the case, as in India, excess manpower is a liability to development. This paper,
based on an analysis of contemporary issues, tries to introspect into population-
pollution-development debate with particular reference to India

Introduction
The escalating problem of population explosion in India and the deleterious
consequences of such growth on the quality of our life have now been widely
recognised irrespective of theoretical positions. There is no denying the fact that in
order to attain the cherished goal of sustainable development, we need to improve
the quality of life and material security of the billion poorest people on earth as
well as to realise an ecological wisdom of intergenerational equity in the use of
natural resources (Mehta, 1997). Although human resource is a significant factor in
development, any sustainable society also requires an optimum population to
realise the goals of equity and efficiency. As our earth has a carrying capacity1, it
cannot sustain any unlimited number of people for maximum period of time.
Hence, it appears too simplistic to argue that ‘a man is born with the capacity to
produce’, as he also has a mouth to feed in. Humans affect the environment in two
ways: (a) by consuming resources like food, wood, water, etc., and b) by producing
wastes like excreta, garbage, industrial effluents, etc. One need not, therefore,
explain why any additional number of human population puts demands for more
houses, schools, hospitals, roads, jobs etc. If a society fails to meet these increasing
demands, the socio - cultural, economic and political environment degrades.

* Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Burdwan Raj College, Burdwan, West Bengal
144 ● Tanima Choudhuri

Contrarily, the ‘success’ of a society to meet the additional demands of a large size
population puts constraint on environment. Therefore, given our concern for a
sustainable society, the rising number of human population in certain parts of the
world should be viewed with greater concern and seriousness. Population is a pre-
requisite to development only to the extent that a society requires more manpower
to carry out its developmental activities. But where this is not the case, as in India,
excess manpower is a liability to development. This paper, based on an analysis of
current issues, tries to introspect into population-pollution-development debate with
particular reference to India.

Worldwide Population Growth

As per the World Population Data Sheet (2009) world population has reached 681
crore by the middle of 2009, 82 per cent of which (558 crore) are in the developing
and poor nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Predictions using current
growth rates put world population at 942 crore in 2050 though an optimum
population for the world as a whole is argued to be around 200 crore only
(Tepperman and Blain, 1999). It is a matter of great surprise that world population,
which became double from one to two hundred crore in 123 years, took just another
71 years to reach 600 crore mark in 2000. More importantly, nearly 37 per cent
(250 crore) of world population today is in two developing countries, viz. China
(133 crore) and India (117 crore). It is, therefore, not surprising why do such
developing countries constantly face a tug of war between population and
development. Population growth rate in Asia, Africa and Latin America severely
limits possibility of socio-economic development in these regions. The tragic
aspect of population growth is that poorer the country, the higher the rate of
population growth. The more developed countries of the West today have low
death (10 per 1000 population) and low birth rate (12 per 1000 population) as
compared both with their history and developing nations. For many of them, lesser
population is rather a problem as that makes them dependent on migrant population
for gainful activities2. One important reason for such a demographic transition is
the high standard of life of their population as revealed in their HDI rank and Gross
National Income in Purchasing Power Parity (GNI PPP) per capita. A cursory look
at these figures (Table 1) reveals that developed and developing countries today
face contrary realities so far as population and development are concerned.

Population Explosion and Underdevelopment: Explaining Relation

It has generally been argued that population explosion is responsible for many of
ills faced by countries like India. This is mainly because these countries have not
been able to match its rate of development with that of the rise in population
 Population Explosion in India: Need for Optimum Population 145

Table 1: Population and Development

Countries (by Population Populati Rate of Infant Total Projected Population GNI PPP HDI
Population Mid-2009 on Natural Mortal Fertility (Millions) Capita Rank
Size) (Millions) Per sq Increase ity Rate 2025 2050 (2008 2009
Km Rate US$)

China 1,331.4 139 0.5 21 1.6 1,476 1,437 6,020 92

India 1,171 356 1.6 55 2.7 1,444.5 1,748 2,960 134

USA 306.8 77 0.6 6.6 2.1 357.5 439 46,970 13

Indonesia 243.3 128 1.5 34 2.5 291.9 343.1 3,830 111

Brazil 191.5 22 1.0 24 2.0 212.4 215.3 10,070 75

Pakistan 180.8 227 2.3 67 4.0 246.3 335.2 2,700 141

Bangladesh 162.2 15 1.6 48 2.5 195 222.5 1,440 146

Russia 141.8 -0.3 8 9 1.5 133.3 116.9 15,630 71

Japan 127.6 338 -0.0 2.6 1.4 119.3 95.2 35,220 10

Nigeria 152.6 165 2.6 75 5.7 207.2 285.1 1,940 158

Mexico 109.6 56 1.6 19 2.3 123.4 129 14,270 53

Philippines 92.2 307 2.1 23 3.3 120.2 150.1 3,900 105

Vietnam 87.3 263 1.2 15 2.1 100.1 112.8 2,700 116

Germany 82 230 -0.2 3.9 1.3 79.6 71.4 35,940 22

Ethiopia 82.2 75 2.7 77 5.3 113.1 149.5 870 171

Egypt 78.6 79 1.9 19 3.0 99.1 122.3 5,460 123

Source: World Population Data Sheet 2009 and Human Development Report 2009
146 ● Tanima Choudhuri

(Ghosh 2005). It would be interesting, in this context to review, in brief, some

theoretical explanations regarding the relation between population, environment
and development. Since the publication of Thomas Robert Malthus’ An Essay on
Population (1798), in which a concern for human population outstripping the
means of support was first raised, we have come across several varieties of
approaches on population control. In the Marxian alternative to Malthusian
pessimism, the role of science and technology in a Socialist economy in increasing
food production and inducing advance birth control measures were highlighted.
These optimistic propositions of the Marxists have proved to be true so far as the
Western Capitalist and European Socialist economies are concerned. All most all of
them have by now succeeded in containing their population by raising their means
of subsistence through agricultural modernization and industrial alternatives. Even
some developing countries like India could raise their food production level many
more times through Green Revolution. To the Marxists, therefore, one should
rather concentrate on solving the problems of inequality and exploitation under
capitalism as proper development would do away with the problem of over
population. Without denying the efficacy of the Marxists’ ‘equity perspective’ of
development, it is important to note that the entire inter-connection between
economy and ecology is too complex to grasp. First of all, population explosion is
no more a problem in the ‘capitalist world’. Second, unlimited economic growth
and technology-based model of development cannot always be eco-friendly. There
are limits to what we can expect science and technology to do. Technology depletes
natural resources, contributes to environmental problems and help in perpetuating
social inequality. In several parts of the world per capita income and food
availability did not rise much even after the Green Revolution. Third, affluence
alone could not contain population in several countries of the Middle East. Going
by the experience of ‘developments’ in the twentieth century, it rather appears that
rapid population growth increases conflict, encourages corruption and violence,
brings pressure for rapid solutions and reduces our ability to solve problems
peacefully and quickly. Contrary to the geo-economic reality of Soviet Union, the
Chinese Communists have therefore adopted a pragmatic approach since 1979 to
contain population that rather recognizes the reality of demographic compulsion as
opposed to the Marxian optimism.

The Demographic Transition Theory of recent origin has also attempted to

relate population growth with the levels of socio-economic development in the long
run. Thus, in the first phase, rate of population growth remains minimal, as in
ancient societies, due to prevalence of high birth and high death rates. This
situation gradually changes in the second phase when, due to increase in healthy
facilities, food production and economic development, death rate decreased
strikingly, but birth rate remains high as a result of the continuation of old habits
 Population Explosion in India: Need for Optimum Population 147

and customs. Steady population growth in this second stage is finally contained in
the third stage when increased education and awareness of people in a developed
society help in reducing birth rate and stabilising population growth. This theory
particularly looks into the experience of the Western countries to argue that
population growth stabilises in the long run in the path of development. In spite of
the relevance of the theory, apprehensions are expressed about the possibility of
replicating this model in the third world. This is because if countries like India and
China shall have to wait for a normal control of population through ‘development’,
then they would be exposed to a kind of situation which is no less than catastrophe.
As a corollary, birth control and family welfare measures are given utmost
importance by the governments of these countries.

It must be kept in mind that the Western model of development and

environmental activism cannot provide answers to all our problems. The
developing countries should rather think about the alternative way of reducing the
number of prospective resource users so that whatever resource is available could
be distributed among a limited number of people. The impact of population
pressure on a given environment and also on the quality of life of particularly
women should provide good reason for such a control (Dreze and Sen, 1995). The
ideal of ‘affluence as the best contraceptive’ has limited utility in our case because
high population growth is off setting development gains in the third world. The
uphill task of improving the well being of a vast majority of poor people, raising
their standard of living and providing education, health, housing, drinking water
and similar other essential facilities to them appear to be almost impossible. The
‘elongated pyramid’ age distribution in these countries adds further to their social
and economic difficulties. In India, for instance, 45 per cent of population is below
the age of 20 in 2009. It has also been estimated that by the year 2050, 53 per cent
of the young people (15-24 years) of the world will live in Asia and this figure
would go up to 82 per cent if we include African youth in this list. Managing such
‘revolutionary’ changes in the age structure of the population of developing
countries of Asia and Africa will become a big challenge for the planners of these
countries. This is because, on the one hand, young people are considered
‘resources’ for the economic development of any country. But, at the same time,
they would require adequate infrastructure and facilities to develop them and make
a dignified living. Failure to ensure such ‘development’ on the part of any country
would culminate in chaos and disturbances. The big question, therefore, for the
countries like India is: Will they be able to foster sufficient growth and progress in
the globalised world with burgeoning population?
In the context of globalisation of our economies and societies in recent times,
a new debate on the possibilities of emergence of Asian powers like China and
148 ● Tanima Choudhuri

India has cropped up. It has been argued that these ‘Asian Tigers’ would be able to
utilise their excess population and cheap labour to produce goods and services for
the world market. The shifting of the base of manufacturing and certain service
industries from the North to the South has been cited in this context. It cannot be
doubted that economic globalisation has today opened up the scope for the
expansion of particularly informal sector industries in the South. But whether such
‘informalisation’ and ‘casualisation’ of our economies that do not provide any
scope for decent income would be able to develop ‘capability and freedom’ 3 of
average Indians and solve the vicious circle of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy
and poor health is a million dollar question. As of now, the current process of
globalisation of capital or ‘globalisation from above’ is largely proved to be
beneficial to the developed countries. In spite of certain movement and mobility of
educated Indians or other Asians, there is hardly any ‘globalisation of labour’ in a
world that is rather moving in the directions of protection to national economy
while at the same time creating barriers for their competitors. It should also be
noted at the same time that the strategies of Human Resource Management are
being effectively used to contain the human rights of workers and thereby follow
unfair labour practices including corporate corruption (Ghosh, 2010). The LPG
model of development, which has earlier overstressed the role of market over state
and society, is now being partially reversed in the context of global recession (and
failure of the market) by stressing on the role of state to protect the poor and the
marginalised. Moreover, the technology driven post-Fordist phase of contemporary
industrial reconstruction has left very few options for the vast majority of illiterate
and unskilled ‘reserve army of labour’ in India. Concern for the social security of
unorganised workers, who constitute 93 per cent of Indian workers at present, has
therefore been correctly voiced from different sources. As many of the developing
countries depend on foreign aid to meet even their daily needs, there appears to be
little alternative to population control simply because the road to ‘development’ is
too complex, lengthy, costly, ecologically harmful and often unacceptable as it
results in economic and political dependency on a few mercantile power. Hence,
controlling the number of resource user and consumer in the third world is one of
the pressing and urgent paths of alternative development. Let me now look in the
experience of population explosion in India so as to understand the need for an
India specific model of development.

The Indian Experience of Underdevelopment

The scale at which our population has increased since independence is simply
mind-boggling. We had an addition of 7.82 crores in between 1951-61, 10.89
crores in between 1961-71, 13.52 crores in between 1971-81, 16.1 crores in
between 1981-91 and an addition of 18.1 crores in the last Census decade. This
 Population Explosion in India: Need for Optimum Population 149

ever-increasing growth is due to ‘population momentum factor’ in which the

number of women in the reproductive years of 15 to 49 swells the ranks of potential
mothers. It is estimated that the proportion of child and young population, requiring
additional facilities for a minimum standard of living and capacity development, is
close to 70 per cent of our total population. Hence, our population will continue to
grow even after reaching the replacement level. As per the National Population
Policy (NPP) estimates, India’s population would reach replacement level by the
year 2045 when its total population strength would become close to 170 crore. It is
beyond any one’s expectations how the country would be able to manage such huge
population. It was earlier estimated that India could overtake china’s population by
2035. But, now due to significant success of the Chinese government to cut down
birth rate in recent times, India would become the most populous country of the
world in 2028 itself. How are we to face such a catastrophe? What would be the
environmental impact of such an explosion? Have we not already crossed our
sustainable limit of population? It is not easy to suggest definite answers to these
queries. But we certainly can draw some lesson from an analysis of some major
socio-economic and environmental issues facing our country today. Let me look
here into four such basic issues in order to ascertain the impact of rising population
on our living standard and life pattern.

Food production and food security in India: The relation between the population
growth and food supply in South Asia in general and India in particular has often
been regarded from a neo-Malthusian perspective. It is, however, true that many of
these countries including India have been able to increase their food production
many times since 1960. But this ‘quantum leap’ is argued to be inadequate for
India’s large population. As India possesses only about 2.4 per cent of the total land
area of the world, but close to 18 per cent of the world’s population to feed, a large
section of such population remains undernourished. The Green Revolution, which
once contributed to the rise of agricultural productivity, has now become fatigue.
Due to rising population, declining resource bases, increasing economic and
environmental costs and inadequate policy attention to these issues, we could not
sustain high agricultural productivity achieved through Green Revolution. Over the
1990’s the growth rate of food grain production in India has dropped to 1.66 per
cent per annum, which is lower than the population growth rate of 1.9 per cent in
the same period. For the five years from 2002-07, however, the average annual
growth rate in agriculture has increased to 2.2 percent. Yet, per capita availability
of food grains in terms of kg/year was 162.5 in 2006, below the level of 1972
figure of 171.1. Due to good monsoon in subsequent years, India claimed ‘record
150 ● Tanima Choudhuri

production’ of food grain (234 million matric tones in 2008-9) and the government
has set a food grain production target of 238.12 million matric tones for 2009-10.

In spite of such incremental gains, we are heavily dependent on the fate of

good monsoon to produce the minimum required quantity of food. But,
environmental factors like global warming seriously obstruct such optimism today.
Thus, apart from continuous natural calamities like flood and cyclone, we are again
faced with the problem of bad monsoon in 2010. With nearly half of the country
suffering from drought, prices of essential food items have already gone up many
times. It is common knowledge that the impact of a double-digit inflation in the
country will have to be born out by the vast majority of our poor. In a country
where the Public Distribution System (PDS) does not function effectively, price
rise for foods have meant a steady gradual increase in hunger and malnutrition.
Various studies and the data from the NSS (2004-5) have revealed that there is a
decline of per capita intake of calories and protein in both rural and urban areas.
The decline in the availability of food grains is made worse with the precarious
levels of employment mostly at subsistence levels.

It is in this context that our planners today argue for a ‘Second Green
Revolution’ to meet the requirement of 300 million tones of food production for
more than 117 crore Indians. The environmental and social costs of such
biotechnology driven expensive ‘revolution’ cast serious doubts for the future of
poor and marginal Indian peasants. It is also not clear how we would be able to
reduce our agricultural land area from 17 crore hectares to 10 crore hectares so as
to meet the environmental requirement of 33% of forest cover for the country. It
must also be noted in this context that our per capita cultivated land has been
shrinking in size from 1.11 acres in 1921 to only 0.43 acre in 2001 despite some
increase in the acreage of cultivable land through land reclamation programme.
Government reports also acknowledge that by now nearly 60 per cent of our
agricultural land is degraded to varying degrees. In a country where nearly 66 per
cent of population continues to depend on agriculture, one needs to seriously look
into these problems. The task of ensuring food and nitration security to the
common people to make a hunger-free India thus appears to be most challenging.

Unemployment: Unemployment and poverty are the two most important

pollutants in the developing countries. In spite of our effort to launch several
employment generation programmes during the last five decades, unemployment
backlog in India has increased over time since Independence and at no point of
time we could come closer to our proclaimed target of full employment. As the rate
of employment growth over the last two decades has remained at about 2.2 per cent
instead of the deserving 4 per cent annually, the problem of unemployment has
 Population Explosion in India: Need for Optimum Population 151

now become almost colossal. After the introduction of economic reforms, jobless
growth along with public sector job cut, compulsory retirement, industrial sickness
and closure have made the situation even worse. Thus, employment in
establishments covered by Employment Market Information System of the Ministry
of Labour grew at 1.20 per cent per annum during 1983-94 but decelerated to 0.12
per cent per annum during 1994-2006 (GOI, 2009: 264).

Employment opportunities in the country since 2008 have also been affected
by the global financial crisis and economic slowdown in the major markets of
India. According to a sample survey of 2,581 units conducted by the Labour
Bureau, Ministry of Labour and Employment, during October-December 2008,
there was decrease in employment of about half a million workers during the
period. Another sample survey by the same organization indicated a loss of about
one-lakh jobs in the month of January 2009. Consequently, the unemployment rate
has risen from 5.99 per cent during 1993-94 to 10.70% in 2009-10. Moreover,
informalisation of most of the available jobs in the country today cannot ensure job
security and decent income. The mushrooming of low paid temporary/casual jobs
for even the skilled workers in the BPO sector only signifies the emergence of a
‘risk society’ for the common man. It is high time that we realize our problems and
take harsh steps to check population growth.

Poverty and inequality: India’s achievement in reducing poverty and

consequent income inequality has not been very bright. The official definition of
the poverty line in the country does not include even such a basic necessity as
clothing (even for women) leave aside the need for a roof over one’s head or
education or medicine (Sahay, 2002). The extent of population living below the
poverty line is however a contentious issue and recent estimates of even officially
constituted committees vary very widely (Dhawale ,2010, Chatterjee, 2010). Thus,
the latest Planning Commission’s estimates for 2004-05, based on the latest 61st
Round of NSSO report, put national poverty at 27.5 per cent. As against this, the
World Bank’s estimates (2005), based on the yardstick of earning $2 a day, claim
76 per cent of Indians as ‘poor’. Similarly, the recommendations of the rural
development ministry's committee on BPL surveys (called Saxena Committee)
submitted in July 2009, has recommended that 50% of India's population be given
below-poverty-line cards. Quite surprisingly, Dr Arjun Sengupta Committee
(NCEUS) has noted that 77 per cent of the Indian population does not have the
capacity to spend more than Rs 20 per day in 2004-05. This means that actually 80
per cent of our population is BPL. Faced with a mounting criticism that
Government is deliberately keeping poverty estimates low, the Tendulkar
Committee was asked to rectify the Planning Commission estimate and the
Committee had found poverty to be 37.2 per cent in 2004-05 based on a new
152 ● Tanima Choudhuri

methodology4. There is, therefore, every reason to believe that economic reforms
have widened disparity and distress among people.

It must be mentioned here that in the social sector, we could not improve our
performance equally. For instance, India’s rank in the Human Development Index
in a list of 180 countries of the world has worsened from 128 in 2006 to 134 in
2009. Stagnant agriculture, higher inflation, market recession, increase in the
number of casual, marginal and agricultural workers, higher rates of malnutrition
among children – all refer to increasing stress and exclusion in the life of common
man. Income inequality in India is so sharp that the richest 20 per cent of the
population share more than 46 per cent of total national income leaving only 8 per
cent for the poorest 20 per cent (Human Development in South Asia, 2002).
Growing inequalities have also been accompanied by increasing regional and rural-
urban disparities. 2001 Census data clearly affirm that India has approached 21 st
Century with 64 percent of its citizens not possessing any bathroom or a latrine in
their houses. Moreover, 48 per cent of our countrymen do not have any permanent
house and a sizeable section of them live either in makeshift tents or on the street.
Again, 44 per cent of Indian households do not have electricity and 52 per cent still
use firewood to cook meals. We also lack basic infrastructure for the development
of human capacities. Thus, Only 1.60 lakh out of a total of nearly 5 lakh villages in
India have proper roads.

The facts and figures stated above speak, on the whole, about the necessity of
equitable and holistic development in India. As poverty exposes poor people to
pollution, affect their health and lower their productive capacity, it is just not
possible to sustain any kind of development in India without solving the problem of
rampant poverty and large-scale inequality.

Literacy and Health: The literacy rate and health conditions are key to all
types of development and these two factors strongly influence demographic
behaviour. In countries like India efforts to enhance literacy rates and health
facilities are strongly affected by an increasing number of human population. After
50 years of concerned efforts India could raise its literacy rate to 65.38 per cent in
2001. Still with nearly 358 millions total illiterate (35%), India tops the rank of
largest number of illiterates in the world. The money spent on formal education in
our country has been decreasing in every Five Year Plan. As a consequence we
now have become more dependent on the Mass Programme of Functional Literacy
and Adult Literacy programmes to bail us out of the situation. It may be noted in
this context that the ‘primary school survival rate’ (i.e., percent completing fifth
grade) in India in 2005-06 is nearly 40 per cent and 39 per cent of children between
6 and 14 years of age do not go to school at all. Again, only 15 per cent of our
 Population Explosion in India: Need for Optimum Population 153

students are able to continue their education in high school. The problem of gender
bias in schooling is also significant in the country as the NFHS-3 reports that 41 per
cent of our women in the age group of 15-49 never attended any school. The task of
making India a ‘full literate nation’ in true sense of the term appears daunting
because of sheer magnitude of the problem.

In the health sector our performance is even worse. It has been argued that our
medical infrastructure is alarmingly backward to support even the population
figures cited by the 1991 census. India today is literally a ‘diseased nation’ with
more than 6.7 lakh children dying every year due to diarrhoeal diseases. Water and
sanitation related illness account for about 60 per cent of all urban deaths (Sharma,
1997). As nearly 125 million Indians have no access to health services even age-old
diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, typhoid, polio, etc., haunt us. In 2009, the Infant
Mortality Rate (IMR) in India was 55 as compared to 21 in China and only 2.6 in
Japan. The intensity of the problem of malnutrition and consequent risk of impaired
health can be understood from the fact that one-third of our children are
undernourished. According to the UNICEF report The State of the World’s
Children (2009), India has the highest rate of child malnutrition in the world.

After twenty years of immunisation, the children of India are not even close to
being fully immunised. NFHS-3 data reveal that such coverage is 44 per cent only.
The same government report also states that 44 per cent of currently married
women in the country do not follow any family planning method. It is also
depressing that 135 million Indians have no access to health services and 128
million do not have access to safe drinking water. Over and above, there are
failures and shortcomings on the part of the government to provide basic health
facilities to its expanding population. As per 2001 population norms, there is a
shortfall in the number of sub-centres (11%), Public Health Centres (15%) and
Childcare Health Centres (49%) (Mehta and Bhanot, 2008: 274). There are acute
shortages of doctors, nurses, volunteers, midwives, specialists, technicians and
officers to manage health services particularly in rural areas. Failure to achieve any
declared policy therefore led the government to change its goal of ‘Health for all by
2000 AD’ to ‘Millennium Development Goals by 2015’. It appears that our task in
every essential front is quite heavy and with less governmental spending on health
and other welfare measures these days, one may hardly hope for any better life in
near future.

Need For An Optimum Population

It appears that India cannot have both ‘population explosion’ and ‘Sustainable
Society’ at the same time. If we aspire for a society where every new born Indian
will be assured of a safe and dignified life with necessary prerequisites for such a
154 ● Tanima Choudhuri

living, we will have to cut down the number of prospective resource users and
consumers drastically. While population control alone would not suffice for
realizing the goal of a sustainable and environment friendly society, such step
should be considered as the most urgent and necessary one at the present moment.
There is, however, very little doubt about the need to check our population growth.
What appears to be debatable is the ways and means of realizing such a goal. The
National Population Policy, declared in February 2000, has aimed at bringing the
total fertility rate to replacement level by 2010 and achieving a stable population by
2045. But the high rate of fertility in 2009 (2.7) itself shows that we are far away
from reaching the declared goal.

The question that becomes pertinent in this context is, have we not already
crossed the sustainable limit of population? If the Government has to ensure a
decent standard of living for all, we are far excess in number today itself. It should
also be kept in mind that the immediate objective of NPP to make health and
contraception facilities available to all was felt by the Government at least 20 years
back. Also the goal of bringing down fertility rate to replacement level by 2000 was
envisaged as early as in 1983. The NPP’s objectives by now have become
deceptive given our performance in the last few years. In 2001 itself, we have
already exceeded the NPP’s estimated population for the year 2002 by about 14
millions. Even it only four Indian states, e.g., Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan
and Uttar Pradesh (known as BIMARU) take 40 years to reach a level of
population growth where Kerala and Tamil Nadu are now, it would be impossible
for the country as a whole to achieve any desired goal. Hence, it is imperative that
some bold initiatives are taken before it is too late within the purview of democratic
norms that we uphold. Some State Governments like Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan,
Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana have already come forward with
‘disincentives’ like withdrawal of government sponsored facilities or debarring a
person with more than two children from contesting Panchayat election. It is true
that the Chinese coercive method of ‘one-child policy’ followed since 1979 has
certain uncalculated social consequences and we cannot follow China given our
democratic setup. But, at the same time, we do not have sufficient resources and
infrastructure required for any voluntary family planning programme to work
smoothly. Moreover, due to socio-structural differences, the much-publicised
‘Kerala model’ could hardly be replicated in other parts of the country and
particularly in central and northern India. Hence, no one knows how to tackle the
socio-cultural bottlenecks and political obstacles to family planning? It appears that
if India cannot afford coercion to control birth rate (like those followed during
Emergency), it certainly can offer incentives to reward small and nuclear families
and disincentives to punish the offenders. As of now, incentives like scholarship for
single girl child and disincentives like debarring a person to contest Panchayat
 Population Explosion in India: Need for Optimum Population 155

election do exist in the country. But we need many more of such incentives with a
very sharp vision. And in order to do so, we need to be politically committed,
administratively efficient and socially responsible for making an India that looks
ahead of others.

Notes
1. The concept of carrying capacity refers to the maximum (not desirable) number of
people that a given environment can sustain over a longer period of time.

2. For 19 countries of Europe along with Japan, the rate of natural increase of population
is either zero or less than that.

3. Amartya Sen (2000) has argued that development can be seen as a process of expanding
capacities and instrumental freedom.

4. As compared to the NSSO’s estimate based only on needed expenditure of Rs. 368 and
Rs. 559 per person per month for rural and urban areas respectively to meet minimum
calorie intake, the Tendulkar Committee has modified the estimate of poverty by
including spending on food, education, health and clothing along with calorie intake.

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