Population Control: Need and Way Ahead

 India is country which is diverse in its ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious characteristics, there are around 1.7 billion people in our country which makes us the second-most populous nation after China, nonetheless, it won't be long that we will conquer China and become the most crowded country on the planet.

The greater part of us is currently mindful that our population is growing expeditiously and we are in a phase where we need to control it. Our Hon'ble Prime Minister himself talked upon this point in his Independence Day speech and advised us to have a deeper thinking in family planning. There was a time where we were the first country in the world to ever adopt a policy for population growth. Now the time has come to adopt it once again.

Why Population Growth Is A Problem For Us? / Why We Need To Control It?

Excessive population is not only going to impact human life but also is going to impact environment, economy and etc. Some have been pointed down below:

Poverty:

India is a country where endless pattern of populace blast and neediness goes on. Here a portion of population still lives with earning which is below $1 and millions of youngsters still don't have a job. It's undeniably true that individuals who are not able to meet there ends usually have higher number of children in their family so that they can have more earning hands with them. The infant mortality rate in underprivileged family is high because they are unable to benefit themselves legitimate clinical and food assets.

This would mean these families are in a cycle of producing more children by knowing the fact that many of them would not survive. The outcome is that it is producing lot of stress in population size prompting an increment. The major problem of no jobs and lack of resources will increase with each birth which would ultimately mean increase in the poverty.

Unemployment:

India is developing country, here we have limited number of jobs available for each individual. Due to the increasing number of people the competition in the market is increasing even for the most menial jobs. In this pandemic time a lot of people have lost their jobs. According to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, unemployment rate in urban area stands at 10.07% and in rural area it is 8.75%. With increasing population, the rate of unemployment is bound to be to rise even more.

We in our real life at many instances have seen people with the Bachelors and Master's degree are still sitting at home as they are unable to find jobs. This would eventually encourage such youngsters to find job outside India which would mean migration to developed countries.

Food Resources:

Every single asset on this planet is restricted in amount. India is in a developing state and being an exceptionally crowded nation would imply that food here would be produced in enormous amounts however this isn't correct. As indicated by Global Hunger Index 2020 India stands at 94th position among 107 countries much behind Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nepal.

Moreover, the estimates given by the Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations in The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, 2020 report show that around 14% of the population in India is undernourished. Also, 51.4% of women in conceptive age between 15 to 49 years are anaemic. This information positively shows that lack of healthy sustenance actually is an extraordinary issue in our country.

If you walk on the streets in India, you could see children fight with each other for a piece of food, this might be shocking for a couple of us, but it is a daily survival task for most people. This takes us back to the question that assuming we permit the population still to build, then we are permitting natural selection in our country.

Religious and Cultural constraints:

India's way of life runs exceptionally profound and far back ever. Because of the expanding populace, the educational facilities are extremely scant. Also, a great deal of families leans toward having a boy instead of a girl. Thus, a ton of families have a greater number of kids than they really need or can bear, bringing about an increase in poverty, the absence of assets, and in particular, an expanding populace.

Another one of India's cultural norms is for girls to get married at an early age. In most parts of the country, families prefer to get their girls married at the age of 14 or 15. Despite the fact child marriage is illegal in India, the lifestyle and general public surrounding the girls in India doesn't allow them to go against such choices made by their families. For some giving a girl in marriage is not by decision, yet rather out by impulse.

he poor financial status of tribal villagers is ascribed to one of the essential elements liable for child marriage in India. Because of the youthful ages of these girls, they have a greater ability to bear children, that is, since they start bearing children at a very young age, they can have more children throughout their lifetime.

This results in an overall increase in the global fertility rate. Since these girls get married at a very young age, they don't have the chance to get education. Consequently, they stay ignorant and show similar standards to their own children, and the practice goes on from one age to the next.

Population polices in India after Independence:

In 1951 India turned into the first among the developing countries to come up with a state sponsored family planning programme. The Planning Commission which was set up in 1950 and was given the undertaking to choose the shapes of the family planning programme.

In 1952, a populace strategy board of trustees was comprised. This panel had suggested setting up of a Family Planning Research and Programmes Committee. Be that as it may, the approaches outlined in 1951-52 were specially appointed in nature and were fundamentally founded on restraint. So, it was not effective.

Camp Approach:
The Fourth Five Year Plan (1966-74) saw a huge shift with the government receiving a forceful objective-based methodology to battle the quickly rising population. Denoting the start of the state-sponsored family planning strategy's advancement into a powerful, practically mechanical program we see today. While the State at first saw financial and social improvement as the best contraceptive and the biggest bulwark against rapid population growth the Indira Gandhi government-regulated an extreme shift to one side, and the quest for a more perpetual strategy for populace control: sterilization.

By the year 1976-77 the programme gained momentum and a lot of people were being forcefully sterilized especially men. Millions of people were sterilized in India under these coercive and intense measures during, before, and after the Emergency Period. To put it into perspective, it is assessed that more than 6 million individuals were sterilized in 1976 alone more than the number of people sterilized by Nazi Germany before 1939.

Because of this political and regulatory push, the quantity of sterilizations rose from 1.3 million out of 1974-75 to 2.6 million of every 1975-76 and afterward shot up to 8.1 million out of 1976-77, a level which has not been reached since.

Problems:

• There was a decline in IUD cases, along with a drop in using conventional contraceptives i.e., condoms- from 83.5 % to 74.9%. This shows how forced sterilisation programme assumed control over the whole family planning programme, subsequently basically falling flat as an all-adjusted methodology during the Emergency.
• The raids carried for sterilisation mostly targeted vulnerable segment of the general public.
• The manner in which the sterilizations were performed was rushed, amateurish, perilous, and unsanitary. It had undying effect on the public impression of family planning practices in India. The shaky strategies used to accomplish absurd sterilization quotas discoloured the public's view of health workers.

 WE CONTROL THE GROWTH OF EVERY OTHER SPECIES , EXCEPT OUR OWN

Thank you for reading my blog

shagun

Amity university, rajasthan