Author: Balbir Punj
Publication: The Asian Age
Date: September 17, 2002
I hold Ms Shabana Azmi in high esteem,
both as an actress and a Rajya Sabha colleague. The popular cine actress
is also a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF).
Hence, it is expected of her to
extend the UNPF line of advocating a reduction in birth rates as an instrument
to attack poverty. So when Ms Azmi turns around and attacks the use of
incentives and disincentives to curb population growth, under the plea
that these measures are anti-poor and amount to the penalisation of the
victims, one wonders whether the voice of the UNPF ambassador has been
distorted by the traditional Leftist approach of keeping the poor in perpetual
poverty.
The population of India which stood
at 102.7 crore on March 1, 2001 is increasing by about 1.8 crore every
year. India became the second country in the world after China to cross
the 1 billion mark. India accounts for a mere 2.4 per cent of the world's
surface area but it supports and sustains 16.7 per cent of the global population.
By 2050 India will most likely overtake China to become the most populous
country in the world.
As per the United Nations estimates,
world population grew at an annual rate of 1.4 per cent during the decade
of 1990-2000. China registered a much lower annual population growth rate
of 1 per cent during the same period compared to about 1.9 per cent in
the case of India. The population of India, which at the turn of the 20th
century was only around 23.8 crore, increased by more than four times in
the period of 100 years to reach 102.7 crore at the turn of the 21st century.
Interestingly, the population of
India grew by one and a half times in the first half of the 20th century
and in the second half it recorded a phenomenal three-fold increase. Therefore,
India's need for an effective population policy can seldom be over-emphasised.
The population scenario, in fact, is quite bleak in Asia and Africa. It
fuels a sense of desperation - that it might be too late if population
growth is not curbed now.
It is against this backdrop one
has to weigh Ms Azmi's arguments. Surely she has a point against coercion
and targeting people, as that can defeat the purpose of family planning.
There is little wisdom in denying hospital facility to a woman who already
has two children and is about to deliver her third. Ms Azmi may be right
that in India, and in many other developing countries, it is not the woman
but the man and at times even family heads who take the decision on childbirth.
Unless the woman has the final say on this matter, disqualifying her from
her job and taking other similar steps can amount to victimisation.
But at the same time we must answer
certain questions. If disincentives mean penalising the victim, and repeated
pregnancies are not good, then how do we rectify the situation? Ms Azmi
advises medicare facilities, high literacy and economic independence for
women. Sure enough, but will any government be able to provide enough hospitals,
schools etc. to the people if population growth rate goes out of control,
particularly in states like UP, Bihar and Orissa? Is not this a case of
which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Then there is the question of female
literacy and empowerment, which the Leftists claim to strongly support.
But why are they selective about its implementation only on the majority
community? If coercion is bad for planned population policies, why don't
they start with compulsory female education? Or is that another form of
coercion? In some communities women are subjected to divorce at will (of
the men) and any attempt to change this status is met with an argument
that it is a coercion of minorities. In fact divorce at will, polygamy
and very low school enrolment rate for women, all seem to go hand in hand.
In the conspicuous absence of any
effort to reform from within, should not small incentives and disincentives
act as checks and balances? Should there not be a movement for 100 per
cent enrolment of Muslim girls to modern schools, pushing them into employment
to bolster economic independence?
She should push forward their case
for greater female literacy, empowerment of women, and protection against
arbitrary divorce. Why is it that in the southern states, say Kerala, where
healthcare facilities are the best in the country, birth rate doesn't go
down amongst certain communities? Or does the insistence on a two-child
norm affect the long-term political agenda of these communities?
The higher rate of population growth
among the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent has altered the demographic
picture. A.P. Joshi, M.D. Srinivas and J.K. Bajaj of the Centre for Policy
Studies, Chennai have recently finished working on a 350-page report titled
Religious Demography of India.
Awaiting its official release, the
study promises to be a classic collage of population data relevant to India
in particular and the world in general. It observes: "The proportion of
Indian religionists in the population of India (including Pakistan and
Bangladesh) has declined by 11 percentage points of 110 years for which
census information is available. Indian religionists formed 79.32 per cent
of population in 1881 and 68.03 per cent in 1991. This is an extraordinary
decline to take place in just about a century. If the trend of decline
seen during 1881-1991 continues, then the proportion of Indian religionists
in India (including Pakistan and Bangladesh) is likely to fall below 50
per cent early in the latter half of twenty-first century."
Within India proper, the decline
suffered by Indian religionists is less pronounced - from 86.64 per cent
in 1901 to 85.09 in 1991. But in some pockets, especially in the border
areas, the Muslim population has seen an increase. In Kerala, the Hindus
had lost six percentage points to Christians in the pre-Partition period,
between 1901 and 1941. But in the post-Partition period between 1951 and
1991 they lost six per cent to the Muslims.
In the heartland and eastern regions
of the Indian Union, comprising Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam,
Hindus have suffered a setback of four percentage points in the four decades
between 1951 and 1991. In the northern border belt extending across Uttar
Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam, the post-Partition Muslim rate of
growth has earned it seven percentage points in the demographic share.
It will be naïve secularism to opine that the high population growth
among Muslims in this sensitive belt is innocuous.
"More women die of pregnancy related
issues in one week in India than all of Europe in a whole year," reminds
Ms Azmi. True, and that is certainly bad. But at least this is confined
to the Bimaru states and does not extend to the southern and the western
states.
But worse things are happening in
some neighbouring countries. Pakistan, has one of the highest infant and
maternal mortality rates in the world. This is partly due to the pressure
on the hapless uneducated women with hardly any independent means of livelihood
to give birth. They fear that their men will desert them. There is a popular
saying in Bangladesh, "Those who are fortunate, lose their wives, those
who are less fortunate lose their cows." Few raise their voices again this
inequality.
Ms Azmi is right when she says that
if you deny ration to a poor family with three children because they have
violated the two-child norm, it would worsen the situation. This is a paradox
because it is the poor who need the maximum help and it is they who cannot
practice population control for various reasons. But what happens when
the poor are not motivated to practice it? They are caught in a vicious
cycle of poverty. So is not a little coercion that might help them in the
long run better than condemning them to perpetual poverty?
Studies have shown that economic
improvement has inevitably followed the two-child norm and responsible
parenthood. It has never been the other way round. Communities, which were
compelled by law to abandon their traditional practice of having more than
one wife, discontinued child marriage and sent their girls to school. Hence,
a limited package of incentives or disincentives will have a far better
result.
Recently the Central government
enacted a marriage, inheritance and divorce reform law for Christians with
help from the Supreme Court, pressure from the community's own leaders
and enlightened public opinion, in spite of opposition from some conservatives.
A courageous woman, Mary Roy, fought till the Supreme Court reformed the
Christian Inheritance Law. But what happened when the Supreme Court and
enlightened public opinion sought to reform the Marriage and Divorce Law
among Muslims in the Eighties? The contrast between the impacts that Mary
Roy and Shah Bano had on their respective communities is worth a study
in how reforms are implemented or blocked.
In my opinion, goodwill doesn't
mean refusal to initiate, legislate or campaign for social reforms. Why
do Leftists often seem to support the fundamentalist; and reformist beacons
like Ms Azmi at times seem to argue on the same side as Shahi Imam and
Syed Shahabuddin? Should not Shabana resurrect Shah Bano?
(Balbir K. Punj is a Rajya Sabha
MP and convenor of the BJP Think Tank and can be contacted at bpunj@email.com)
