The article ‘Uneven Population of India’ (Herald, 27 September) is written by the Governor of Goa – an accomplished author. Therefore, the article must be well researched. However, there are many discrepancies which need to be set right. She states that the Chinese government adopted the one child norm for the country’s couples but the same government withdrew the ruling after only 5 years, realising that one child norm was not proper for the suitable development of child’s personality and also the society. This is not so. The one child ‘norm’ per couple – this was not a ‘norm’ but a well enforced diktat/law – came into being in 1980. In 2013, the Chinese government decided to relax the same to ‘2 children’ which ultimately came about in 2017 with retrospect effect. This is definitely not a span of 5 years but 3 decades. The reasons provided by the writer as being that of the Chinese government are actually her own reasons.
Further, they found that one child was left to attend to 2 parents and 4 grandparents – hence in 2009 they allowed couples to have 2 children if both parents were single. Nothing to do with child’s personality development.
The writer then says she is not convinced by single child parents giving reasons such as country’s over population, high costs, etc – she did not mention no jobs in India. Correctly, she says it is her ‘opinion’ that the parents are lazy: but this does not make it the ‘correct reason’. In 2013, I asked English speaking Chinese in China, what would be their reaction to 2-child rule? They clearly said that they would not go in for the same as education costs were very high! We all know, Chinese are not lazy.
Her next issue is that the family is the first school where the child learns good habits and therefore siblings are necessary. If this is so, why do we have the current ‘calibre’ of politicians? Are all the numerous politicians with dubious characters and pending criminal cases from single child families? Further, she says one can imagine how an only child behaves in society – selfish, etc. There are many famous only child personalities.
She then speaks of ‘more and more couples’ having 10-12 children! When we say ‘Indians habitually spit everywhere’ it is because a vast majority of Indians do this. There cannot be a ‘vast majority’ having 10-12 children: so why? We need to stick to facts. Definitely, Indians from lower strata of society from all religions, tend to have 4-5 children. This, we learnt even in schools. A problem of governance; the solution here is to properly enforce the law of not using children for work. In India, this is a major reason for over population. More than 60,000 children go missing in India every year, 4,000 in the capital alone. In 3 decades, this works out to 18 lakh.
Many of the missing children end up in illegal factories and prostitution. Should not these be the areas to be addressed to curb overpopulation?
If we want to overcome over population then we need to tackle poverty, education for all, enforce ban on child labour, ensure no missing children and encourage adoption. Adoption is the best solution today.
