The Hindu Business Line : Population can be an asset too

THE President, Mr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, has repeatedly stressed the importance of population control for India to become a `developed' nation. While interacting with students in Shimla last December, he said that it is necessary to control the population as strides made in different fields are negated by the ever-increasing numbers.

But this is one side of the story. Mr Kalam also sees India's population as an asset. Its large population creates demand for goods and is the basis of economic growth.

Speaking at a seminar organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry in 1998, he said: "Of the billion people, 20 million can buy anything; they are rich fellows, like anybody in an advanced country.

Then some of us belong to the 250 million so-called middle-class. They also have buying power. What it means is that (these) people need something. They can buy from you. You concentrate on the local market. That is the message I would want to convey."

In an article, One billion dreams guide me, available on sify.news, Mr Kalam asks: "Can we call our growing population our strength?" He replies: "Certainly yes, provided we give dignity to everyone down the strata, with good education."

Lack of education, then, is the problem, not large population per se. Mr Kalam also seeks to increase the number of good people. In a discussion with a monk of the Swaminarayan sect in 2001, he expressed the need to increase the number of `good' people: "To realise this great dream, three types of people are needed — punya atma (virtuous people), punya neta (virtuous leaders) and punya adhikari (virtuous officers)."

There are two sides to the issue of population, according to Mr Kalam. On the one hand, higher population negates the "strides made in different fields''.

On the other, higher population creates a large market, which is an asset if people are educated.

A look at the difficulties created by a large population. The use of oil and coal in large quantities by an ever-increasing population is leading to global warming. But the use of fuels depends as much on lifestyle as on population.

A large population may not consume much energy.

The same power would be sufficient for 100 families using ceiling fans. Thus, carbon emissions can be reduced if more people used fans and smaller numbers used air-conditioners. Environmentalist Paul Ehrlich said in his book The Population Bomb: The economy "could be designed so that basic material needs of each person are satisfied and each person has an equal opportunity to realise his or her individual human potential".

It is not absolutely necessary to increase consumption of energy-intensive goods for realising one's potential. Instead, we should increase consumption of non-polluting goods such as music and books rather than air conditioners.

The second argument for lower population is poverty. It is said that people in poor countries are cutting down forests because of increasing pressure on land. But this pressure is as much due to the transfer of resources to richer countries.

An article in Cambridge Scientific Abstracts says: "Overpopulation burdens the environment with increasing demand for timber and fossil fuels, driving up the price of the raw materials industrialised nations need to import."

There are two claimants for the scarce resources of the developing countries — the large population of the poor countries and the small population of the rich countries. Another argument is that less population leads to higher economic growth.

It is seen that developing countries have attained high growth rates in periods when their population was declining as has been seen in Brazil and Egypt in the 1970s. But they could not sustain the high growth rates.

This is explained by UNFPA's State of the World Population Report 2002. It says that the high growth during a period of population decline is a short-term affair:

The "downturn in fertility opens a demographic window, a period in which a large group of working-age people is supporting relatively fewer older and younger dependents."

The large numbers from earlier generations need to support few young ones in this short period. They can use the saved energies to build factories or houses. But this happy situation ends as soon as the next generation takes command. Then few persons have to support few children and, once again, the growth rate declines.

How, then, do we explain the low populations of the rich countries of the West? Their richness arises from technological innovations; income transfers from the poor countries and the availability of a large labour force in the developing countries, which produces cheap goods for their consumption. Their high incomes reflect the poor incomes elsewhere.

How can a large population be provided with housing and education? Rabindranath Tagore, in an article Swadeshi Samaj, said in 1907: "Today the responsibility of providing water is that of the government. The burden of health provision is upon the government. For learning also one has to knock at the door of the government. The tree that flowered itself today begs the sky for a rain of flowers with its naked branches...

"The Indian equivalent of the Western `state' is kingship. But there is a great difference between the two. The West has left all tasks to the state; we had done so very partially... Knowledge was propagated without the assistance of the kingship. The king definitely honoured the learned. But the learned were not dependent upon him."

A large population is helpful in attaining economic growth. We need to adopt simple lifestyles rather than assume that a smaller population per se will solve our problems.

(The author is a New Delhi-based freelance writer. He can be contacted at bharatj@nda.vsnl.net.in)

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