The Hindu Business Line : Doomed or still recoverable?

WE can assume, collectively, all political parties are at once concerned with the future of our country. They envision a great and prosperous era going by their manifestos and vision documents.

Curiously however, they do not seem to have done a reality check and appear to ignore the fact that such a Utopia is possible only if the population is controlled. More than giving women one-third of the parliamentary space they ought to be really exercising their minds in finding methods of empowering women at various social units, such as nuclear families, joint families, neighbourhood communities and villages, to have the final say in giving birth to children. The threat of ultimate catastrophe of "human collapse" within a century is more real than an imagined piece of scientific fiction.

Today, India may have just started reaping the economic benefits of having a young and productive population unlike the developed nations which are fearful of a ticking population timebomb in the form of an adverse demographic profile with a relentlessly growing number of the aged with no new additions. However, consider these facts.

India's population is one-sixth of the world population. It is still rising at the rate of 1.8 per cent.

In less than 40 years, it will surpass China as the most populous country with a present population of 1.5 billion. It has the highest density of 789 persons per square mile.

In such a situation, some demographers forecast that even with a strictly enforced two-child norm, beginning now, it would take 500 years to bring the population back to current levels.

People do not want more children than they can support or than they need for their own security. The present efforts of the Government and the non-governmental organisations do not seem adequate for lifting the status of rural womenfolk. Controlling population is only half the equation in maintaining ecological balance. The other half lies in controlling consumption. Sadly, as India becomes prosperous, it is bound to fail in this too.

R. Sundaram