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Population explosion : Real threat

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Population explosion, according to oxford dictionary, is a sudden large increase in size of population. Whole world have gone through this phenomenon because of various reasons in the last two centuries. India, our country, has also been seriously affected by the population explosion. In the present time India stands with a huge population count of about 1370 million, while the planets most populated nation China stands with a population count of 1400 million.

According to a UN study it was estimated that India would overtake china in the number of humans in the next decade. This is obvious too, as India is having no family planning program while our neighbor had started the same program long time ago in 1979. India’s population will continue to grow faster than china. It is an important fact that china has 3 times of landmass than that of India. The total fertility rate (TFR) that is number of children born to a woman, provided she experienced age specific fertility rate and completely survived her reproductive life. The fertility rate of India is 2.33 as per world bank data, which means its population will keep growing in near future. Since the TFR has been declining constantly so the percentage change in population of India has also been decreasing, but even a slight percentage change is large enough in such a huge population.

The issue of population explosion has again come into light, as PM Modi, in his most anticipated speech on the seventy third independence day of India, arouse this issue from the red fort. This issue is sensitive but significant too. PM has compared population control with patriotism, in the hope of changing the public mindset about the family planning. This is not the first time when the government has discussed  the issue of population explosion. It is interesting that India was the first country to adopt the family planning in 1952.

In 1966 Ministry of health created separate department for family planning. The worst scenario of family planning program emerged in the emergency, the black episode in Indian independence history, when about 100 million people were forced to have vasectomy. But the condition has not improved even after these measures. A voluntary family planning policy was also initiated in 1977  but did not yield any result.

China’s communist government apprehended the dangers of over population and started the compulsory one child policy.Although it worked well and the population of China got controlled and the per capita income also raised, but it crushed the freedom of Chinese people and the number of taxpayers has also decreased significantly. Although India’s fertility rate is declining faster than other countries but this effects  population insignificantly because of its huge number.Population explosion’s harms are not imaginary, they lie in near future and most importantly most of its harms are in the present generation.

Over population is the main cause of poverty in India or elsewhere. Every intellectual  person who has ever, by mishap, wandered into the wilderness of poor people, knows the fact, that due to some reasons they are unable to plan family, and afterwards, they get  deep and deep into poverty as they do not have enough resources to maintain that huge family and resulting generations are more poor. The live example of this situation is china where per capita income has become 20 times of its initial value after adopting one child policy. More per capita income is a direct sign of removal of poverty. Other harms of overpopulation are widespread hunger, malnutrition of children, young ones and even cattle.

Poverty is the greatest curse and with the elimination of poverty, a major part of sorrows can be ended, and with that the country can  lead toward a happy nation. In the condition of overpopulation, the number of poor are more than taxpayers, thus even in a welfare state like India, welfare programs remain insufficient to eradicate poverty. Moreover, if there existed a prosperous and small population, there would not be any need of programs like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

In the present scenario, there is a more need of discussing the ‘measures to control population’ explosion than the term ‘population explosion’. Among the measures to control population, government should at first try remove the ‘taboo’ tag from the family planning process. Slogans like ‘Bachhe Do Hi Achhe’ and promotion of different types o contraceptive methods are among them. Education is key to all locks of problems. The most fertility rate is in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar which have the lowest literacy level. If all the students, not only science students, are given the education of family planning and are warned about the harms of overpopulation, then such scenario will not arise in future. Family planning education should be added in every subject and questions of some marks should get place in exams in the way like ‘Road Safety’ subject was added by Rajasthan Government.

For the education of workers and other school passed persons, Family Planning room must be opened in all public hospitals, so that these persons might get advice on family planning without any hesitation, and my also get advice on contraceptives in a single room.Compulsory rules are not appropriate in such sensitive manners and are worse in a diverse country like India. People feel humiliation, force, and prisoner like feeling in compulsory rules, and this leads them towards rebellion. Incentives encourage them to do things as was in Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan.

Government should organize programs for awarding the family planners. Also depriving multi-child parents from welfare schemes is very bad because they are the one who need government assistance. Deprivation from welfare schemes should be done in certain cases like when after two girl children, they increase family for the want of boy child. This will also lead to women empowerment. Laws should be made for easy filing of complaints, when one partner forces other for having a child, this will lead to decrease in domestic violence as well as decrease in population.

Government should set a minimum time limit for having the next child, this will lead to proper maintenance and nutrition of the futures of the nation. Even after all these measures, the problem persist then governmet should take more strong steps like preventing multi-child parents from being in government service, fighting any of the elections etc.Conclusively, there is a strong need of population control but with exercising the population control measures, government should concentrate on skill development programs. Had there been 1370 million skilled citizens, India would have crossed the limits of development.

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