27 Jan 2023  |   04:49am IST

Population explosion hindering development

In an incident that shocked the country, a couple from Bikaner district of Rajasthan threw their 5-month old daughter into a canal as they feared that the father of the deceased child could lose his job as it was their third child.

The accusation is that father Jhanwar Lal killed his own daughter Anshika alias Anshula to save his government job where he was employed on a contractual basis. 

The incident took place in Bikaner's Chhatargarh-Thane region where the alleged killer Jhanwar Lal works as an assistant in a school in Chandasar village. Jhanwar was scared of losing his job as Anshika was his third daughter. Eyewitnesses say that the couple came on a bike, threw the baby in a canal and fled from the spot. The sad and tragic incident has brought the topic of population growth and the controlling measures to the fore at international level. 

There has to be strict laws to control the galloping population. There also has to be timely inspection to see whether the laws are implemented or not. In India, over  20% of people do not have an Aadhaar card which means they are not counted in the census. 

However, the discussion of India taking over China in terms of population is very much trending on the various social media platforms. The 2021 Census of the country has been delayed at least till October 2023 and hence, there are no latest official figures about the  population available. 

The demands such as denying administrative help, concessions, government jobs, right to vote to people who have more than three children are made once in a while with the help of the law. If the population growth rate keeps rising at the current pace then it would be difficult to even walk the streets in future.

Not only in cities but it would be incredibly tough to find houses even in the villages. The ruling government has to think through all these problems in order to find a concrete solution. In fact the country's rising population is not a new problem at all. The remedial plan to control it has been going on since the country gained independence. The country implemented the family welfare program at national level from the beginning on priority. Till 1970, male sterilization (vasectomy) was done on a bigger scale as a solution to the problem and sometimes men had to opt for it almost forcefully. Vasectomy was one of the reasons why there was disregard to the leadership of Sanjay Gandhi. Many reports have called it a failed attempt due to the way it was implemented during the time of Emergency. 

No political party has ever mentioned their policy about controlling population clearly. Even today, there is a need to back the views expressed by social reformer and the pioneer of family planning Raghunath Karve who himself started India's first birth control clinic. 

The emphasis instead is put on increasing the population just because there is a rise in population elsewhere. Nobody wants to understand that the political competition of encouraging people to give birth to more than two children in order to safeguard their vote bank is putting the country's future in danger. 

The rise in population has a direct impact on employment, businesses as well as residential management, farming etc. Just like China, India too is facing the problem of increase in life expectancy due to rising birth rate and reducing mortality rate. The natural resources that country possesses are falling short for the current population and if there is addition to it, then India's geographical area too will fall short to accommodate its people. There is also a rise in migration of families from one state to another in search of better livelihood. 

Hence, the states with abundant resources are witnessing the growing fights between locals and migrants. This also boosts the crime rate, corruption and illegal activities in those particular states. In Goa, many a times the blame of crimes are credited to the migrants. 

The population growth control was and is the need of the hour. There is no doubt that we will have to face natural calamities recurrently if there is imbalance in the natural resources. Humans have already started to encroach on the spaces of animal habitat which has left no option for the wild animals to wander the human localities. The overall approach and attitude makes it look like the Earth belongs to humans and humans only. We will have to take the steps to control the population one day or the other and there is no better time to do that than now.