A mixed bag of statistics shows declining population growth, rising literacy and female foeticide
I have been a journalist for over four decades. The main subjects I have written about are politics and economics. However, I have a pet subject that has long fascinated me which is neither politics nor economics, though it interacts with both: Population. I became interested in it in the early 1980s and was soon convinced that our exploding numbers were largely responsible for our extremely slow economic progress.
By sheer chance, at a function in New York, I ran into a kindred spirit, Werner Fornos, one of the most warm-hearted and dynamic personalities I have ever had the good luck to meet. He was then President of the Washington-based “Population Institute”, a non-governmental organization (NGO) that lobbied Congress to increase funding and involvement in population programmes in the US and abroad. He was later awarded the “United Nations Population Award”, considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in its field.
He persuaded me to send a proposal to the UN body dealing with the subject, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), for a book on population. The head of UNFPA then was Nafis Sadik, a Pakistani. She okayed my proposal and I became what was called a Consultant for the UNFPA for two years, the time required to research and write the book. I went to eight developing countries that had succeeded in stabilizing their population growth through non-coercive means. India was not one of them, not having been successful, and China was excluded since its “one child” policy was based on coercion.
I analysed how these eight countries – two of whom, incidentally, were Islamic, Indonesia and Tunisia – had been so successful. I concluded that, though quite a few factors were involved, such as political will, two that were crucial and common to all the countries were a high literacy rate and good healthcare. In other words, population growth rates had automatically fallen after heavy investment in these two vital areas. With lower population growth rates, their economies also naturally improved.
Why was good healthcare so important? Simply because it meant that people lived longer, largely due to lower infant and maternal mortality rates, as well as more effective control of disease. With good reason is it said that the survival of children is directly related to population stabilization. If a couple know that their children are likely to live to a ripe old age because the healthcare system around them is good, they will have fewer children, perhaps just one or two. Literacy was also important, because parents had to be literate to understand and read about all this.
This brings me to the recently released 2011 census. From the reports, it seems to have some encouraging statistics. However, it also contains information that should shame all of us. The encouraging figures relate to population and literacy.
The exploding population growth rate, a major factor coming in the way of faster economic progress, has come down to 17.64% in the past decade (2001-2011), compared to 21.54% in the earlier decade (1991-2001). When India became independent in 1947, the population was about 350 million. Today, it is 1.21 billion, over three times as much. This has led to massive environmental degradation, especially loss of forest cover. Fortunately, food production has quadrupled during the same period, which is why there have been no mass famines since Independence.
However, the annual increase of population is close to 18 million people – an entire Australia. These 18 million have to be fed, housed and educated. That is clearly unsustainable. Much of the increasing numbers migrate to the cities, since the countryside cannot support them, creating another set of urban problems.
But the census has some good news. It discloses that the greatest decline in the population growth rate has taken place in what demographer Ashish Bose famously called the BIMARU states, an acronym (with double meaning as in “bimar” or sick) for Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
The percentage of Indians who can read and write has risen from 64.8% in 2001 to 74% now. That is encouraging, plus the finding of the census that female literacy has risen faster than that of males. Nevertheless, the gap between male and female literacy – 17% – remains much too large, a sad reflection on the country’s continuing societal bias against the girl child. A literacy rate of 74% may sound good, but really isn’t. It means that some 320 million Indians, more than the entire population of the US, still cannot read or write. A shameful statistic.
Now for the really troubling findings of the census.
The ratio of boys to girls, bad enough a decade ago, has dropped further, from 927 girls to 1,000 boys in 2001 to 914 girls to 1,000 boys in 2011. In most developed countries, the ratio is entirely reversed, with more girls than boys. What does this show? That even more girls are being killed while still in the foetus stage, or just after birth, than before. Earlier, northern states like Haryana and Punjab were the ones most guilty of female foeticide and infanticide. Now, the terrible practice, which is nothing less than cold-blooded murder, has spread to other states as well.
Advances in medicine have made it fairly easy, through sex-determination tests and ultrasound machines, to find out the sex of an unborn child. And there are plenty of corrupt doctors and clinics who misuse these tests and machines, resulting in female foeticide. Few are prosecuted. Misguided parents also connive in the killing of new-born girls. I read a chilling account about how, in certain regions of Tamil Nadu, it is a common practice for the new-born girl to be given the sap of a highly poisonous plant mixed with mother’s milk. The infant greedily sucks the milk – and dies in an hour. The community does not disapprove.
Clearly, gender discrimination remains as strong as ever. The reasons are both cultural and economic. Outdated traditions, like a son being needed to light his father’s funeral pyre and dowry for daughters, persist even among the educated. Property and inheritance laws in most states (Kerala is a notable exception) as well as in many communities are biased in favour of men. Women also often face discrimination, in pay and treatment, at their workplaces. These are some of the social and economic areas that need to be addressed.
Interestingly, the son-preference syndrome also existed in South Korea until quite recently. The main change came with urbanization and modernization. As a result, women became just as valuable as men in the workplace and Korean society placed women on an equal footing with men. That is the road India needs to take.
The writer, former editor of Reader’s Digest and The Indian Express, authored Family Planning Success Stories: Asia, Latin America and Africa
