Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr | After 50 Years, Population Back As Live Issue in India

After a very long time, people are talking about the issue of population, and the need to control it.

This is happening 50 years after the infamous 1975-77 Emergency imposed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the diabolical forced vasectomies done at the behest of then “power behind the throne”, Indira’s son Sanjay Gandhi. Family planning, which until then had been an inane government policy slogan, almost disappeared without a trace in the following decades. There are murmurs here and there, now and then, that population growth is a matter of concern. In the last few years, population control has made its comeback into public discourse, but it still hovers on the margins. The thought barometer of the BJP government, the RSS, has talked about it in two voices, sometimes in favour, and sometimes not. RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat at one point suggested the need for population control, while at another point he talked about the need for Hindus to have more children. Critics do not see much ambiguity in Mr Bhagwat’s doublespeak. They say that when he talks of population control, he means control of the Muslim population, and when he says Hindus should have more children, it is in response to the unfounded fear that Muslims will one day overtake the Hindu population.

There is also the interesting fact that many in the BJP, and in the Narendra Modi government, take undeclared pride in the fact that India has overtaken China as the most populous country in the world about two years ago. There is not much reflection on the issues involved in being the most populous country.

There is at the same time a tearing hurry that India must move towards the developed country bracket by 2047, when India will celebrate 100 years of Independence. Once again, not much thought is spared on how it can be done if India’s population were to continue to grow. According to population estimates of the United Nations, India’s population in 2027 will be 168 crores, up from 34 crores in 1947. To become a developed nation by 2047 would mean that India will have to provide adequate living standards, including education, health, housing and income, to 168 crore people.

The Narendra Modi government has robust plans to meet the development targets, especially the sustainable development goals, or what have come to be known as SDGs, which include education, health and homes for all, drinking water and minimum incomes. It is not clear whether Indian planners are factoring the growing population in the country while stepping up capacity-building from infrastructure to futuristic cities and transport systems. One of the major pressure points for India is that it is 3.2 million sq km in terms of area, and in 2024 the population density was 442 per sq km. This increases manifold when urban populations are taken into consideration. Urban areas constitute three per cent of the total area, supports a little more than 30 per cent of the population and generate 60 per cent of the country’s GDP. The other silver lining, according to projections, is that India’s 15-59 working population will peak at 59 per cent in 2041, and India has the opportunity to reap the maximum demographic dividend around this time. The window of opportunity is expected to last for 38 years before it begins to narrow and close. India will see a decline in the population in 2100, coming down to 900 million if the SDGs are met.

So, population remains a huge challenge to Indian leaders and planners, and a bigger population makes for a bigger challenge. Social investments become a necessary and larger component of all economic outlays. Right now, the State is carrying the burden of social investments, whether in education, health or the development of cities, because more than half the population of India will be living in cities by 2050. It does not help to envision a developed India in 2047 without a frank discussion on the population aspect, on creating the social infrastructure of schools, hospitals, homes across the country.

The pressures of climate change will loom large on the horizon. Dense urban populations will be subject to heat stress with rising summer temperatures, water will be a stressed resource with the changing and erratic patterns of the monsoon and thinning river courses. A rising population will also mean that there would be a diminution of forest cover, which sure to strain the much-needed biodiversity.

The deeper question is whether human intervention can modify the population cycle. The usual cycle is that the population grows and reaches a peak, and then begins to decline. This is what is happening with the populations of advanced economies where there is an increase in the number of older people and a decrease in the younger lot. It looks like it will be difficult buck the trend. As India’s population will begin to age, the median age will be on the rise much later than the populations of other countries. This would require a closer scrutiny of the population control programmes, whether in India or in China. China’s declining population is being blamed on the one-child programme of the 1970s. The government there now wants to push people to have more children.

Many countries facing declining rates of population growth are desperately pushing for younger people to marry and have children. The Indian population, it might appear, is in a happier position, with its median age standing at 28 compared to 37 in China and America, 45 in Western Europe and 49 in Japan. But the demographic dividend cannot be taken for granted. Opportunities to take advantage of the larger working population segment have to be created. Without an adequate social infrastructure, India could remain at the lower end of a thriving economy, providing the carpenters, mechanics, nurses and teachers to the world.

The focus of future development must be a growing population, how it can be controlled, and how the existing numbers can be used to maximise economic power both in terms of production and consumption. A large population provides its own consumer market, but that presupposes a large population that is skilled enough to earn well and live well, and all that goes to make this possible.

All debates about growth and development will have to be around the size of the population.

The writer is a Delhi-based commentator and analyst