Disincentives to promote India's family planning are justified

The Statesman, Asia News Network, Calcutta

According to the latest census data India's population has increased by about 180 million during 1991-2001 which is more than the current population of Brazil -- the fifth most populous country in the world. The decline in our population growth rate has also been extremely slow. The rate which was 2.14 percent per year during 1981-1991 has come down to only 1.93 percent per year during 1991-2001 -- a decline of only about 10 percent in a decade. It would thus take another 100 years or so for our population to stabilize and that too at a mind-boggling level. Alarmed authorities have decided to review the National Population Policy announced in February 2000 and many states have also opted to introduce disincentives to promote family planning.

This has triggered protests from a section of intellectuals, women groups and health groups who have complained to the National Human Rights Commission. Their objections are on two counts. First, the high population growth is due to the government's failure to provide adequate health care and schooling; and second, the use of disincentives to promote family planning is anti-child, anti-woman and anti-Dalit.

Hence the protesters demand that instead of using disincentives, the government should provide good and adequate health care and education to all and specially to the under- privileged class. The development measures, the protesters assert, would automatically bring down the birth rate. However, these arguments are flawed on many counts.

There are several countries which in spite of having high literacy rates, very good health care facilities for all, economic affluence and a very low incidence of poverty still have quite high birth and fertility rates. Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iran, Kuwait and many other countries in the Middle East/Gulf are well known examples. In the adverse socio-political environment, these very development achievements could prove to be counter- productive. For example, religious fundamentalism or politics of caste, class or communal vote banks can promote a higher birth rate if not checked.

Factors like male child preference, polities of caste and communal vote banks; religious fundamentalism; male non- cooperation in family planning and political apathy are some of the well-known socio-political hurdles in India's population control programs. So to insist that literacy, health care and poverty alleviation would check our population growth is wrong.

The political ideology of leaders is also a major factor in shaping the population policy of a country. In the Marxist fashion, Nehru once retorted, that "a large population is the greatest source of power for any nation". In fact, it is this very flawed and out-dated ideology that is at the root of all the protests against the introduction of disincentives to accelerate family planning programmes in India.

For the neo-Nehruvians (or neo-Marxists), it seems, population stabilization could be accepted only as a "by-product" of development. In the introduction of disincentives to promote family planning, these "Leftists" perhaps see a bourgeois ploy to limit the "strength" of the proletariat. So the protests against the policy of using disincentive are more for political reasons than for any genuine concern for the children, women and Dalits. The worst sufferers of large families are Dalits.

It is a myth perpetuated by the Marxists that the poor produce more children for economic reasons. A large percentage of pregnancies in India -- as Mahatma Gandhi had rightly pointed out -- are as a consequence of husband's sexual aggression and wife's inability to say "no" to the spouse. The worst sufferers are the women and the helpless children. Therefore, it is the women and children who are going to benefit most from the implementation of a small family norm with the introduction of disincentives against having a large family.

Let the protesters realize that there is nothing atrocious or inhuman in compelling a man -- rich or poor -- who has already got two children to undergo vasectomy. But it is inhuman to let poor and helpless women get inflicted with frequent maternities (or abortions) and to let their children perpetually live a dehumanized life till the nation succeeded in achieving the required development. Use of effective disincentives to promote vasectomy after two children would indeed be a humane measure.

But what is most unexpected is the objection of few women activists to the proposal to debar anyone with more than two children after a cut-off date from contesting elections on the ground that the proposal is loaded against women. Indeed many women in India are made to bear many children much against their wishes. But a woman who wants to be a leader must at least be strong enough to resist the oppressions.

Otherwise a weak woman, even if elected, will remain a puppet in the hands of her husband even in her public work also as is reported to be happening in many panchayats. This policy of using disincentives to promote family planning will arouse women to assert themselves within the family and that would indeed be a vital initial step towards woman empowerment.

Under the over-liberalized Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 which allows abortion on as flimsy a ground as failure of contraceptive, the policy of disincentives may worsen further the prevalence of female foeticide.

In fact this MTP Act is the root cause of female foeticide and can be solved if an amendment is made to the effect that a medical termination of pregnancy will be permitted only if the husband too undergoes vasectomy simultaneously which is most logical, pro-woman and pro-family planning. This would significantly reduce not only the evil of female foeticide but also minimize the misuse of abortion as a method of family planning.

It is now well understood and accepted that there does exist a demographic level beyond which the population size becomes unsustainable and destructive for a nation. What the country requires now are urgent and unfailing measures to control our population growth. Even if it is presumed that development measures (like literacy, health care, poverty alleviation etc) will check population growth in India, no doubt these development measures are a slow remedy for checking population growth and thses measures can no more save India from the fast approaching Malthusian catastrophe.

It is time the nation gathered the required wisdom and courage to administer to itself a bitter dose of compulsory family planning to check its galloping population growth and then bring it down to a sustainable level. Any attempt to politicize the population issue for political gains would be extremely unfortunate for the nation, and devastating for the poor, Dalits, women and children.