Articles
Demographic Dividend or Disaster
Dt: 25/4/23
Demographic Dividend or Disaster
Dr T H Chowdary*
The fact that India’s population 142.86 cr has exceeded that of China’s 142.57 cr should be celebrated or lamented requires serious consideration. The area of India at 3.287 mln sq kmts in 1951 has not increased. India’s population density of 122 per sq.km in 1951 is now 435 sq.km; 3.56 times larger. China’s population density is 148 per sq.kms . China’s GDP is $ 20 trln; six times that of India’s at 3.5 tln; the per capita GDP of China and India were nearly equal in 1992; China’s now is 6.7 times more than India’s. China has no Below Poverty Line (BPL) population; where as 25% of India’s population is BPL. India is having over 880 mln ( over 60 % of population) covered under food security, provided with almost free rations. Are India’s figures justifying our celebration of our country exceeding China in population and becoming the world’s most populous country with more than four times the population of the world’s most prosperous country , the USA ?
2. Huge population, with many young persons is an asset; if it is so many brains and bodies to produce wealth and strength for the nation. But if they are so many mouths to feed, bodies to clothe and house and persons without employment, then they are not a “demographic dividend” but a “demographic disaster”, what with political parties out of power organizing rallies of unemployed youth demanding jobs!
3. That the total fertility rate, the number of children a woman has during her child-bearing age, has come down to two in India is no consolation; not yet reassuring because the base being high, the additions continue to be large, at 12 to 15 mln per year. Never has our country provided jobs in that numbers in any year nor is there such a prospect. Increasing jobs in governments or filling “vacancies” there is consumptive ; not creation of wealth. Government “jobs” don’t create wealth, huge such numbers stifle wealth-creating pursuits by people. A country over-governed will always remain under-developed.
4. There is one seriously disturbing aspect to our population growth. The growth is skewed. The ill-to-do and the less educated are proliferating faster than the rest. The “upper” caste people have shrunk from about 20% to 15% or less . Muslims have nearly doubled their proportion from 9.8% in 1951 to about 20% including the infiltrators from Bangladesh and Rohingyas patronized as vote blocks by regional parties. Many districts in Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, UP and even in Punjab , Haryana and Kerala , not to speak of many parts of Delhi are becoming Muslim-majority. This is disturbing because of two of several historical reasons.
5. Some Muslim intellectuals like Samar Abbas have already pleaded ( Economic & Political Weekly, Dec 2000 issue) that India should be partitioned again to create a third Muslim state, Mogulistan comprising of a belt of districts from Assam to Punjab in norther India between Bangla Desh and Pakistan.
6. Dr. Omar Khalidi, a post graduate of Harvard University and Ph.D from University of Whales wrote in the Jamat-e-Islami ‘s weekly, “Radiance” in the year 2005 , “ we need Muslim districts for three reasons. First , concentrated areas provide security; second, to provide an environment that is conducive to our cultural independence; third, to provide a political base through which our people can be elected ……at present…our numbers don’t add up to elect adequate legislators. Hyderabad & Rangareddy in Andhra and Gulbarga (Karnataka) and certain Thlaukas could be merged to create Deccan province ( with Muslim majority) similarly in Bihar, Bengal & UP.. where Muslims can be in majority…”.
7. The vote-hunting Congress led by Sonia family had the Sachar Committee report (2006) as per which over 90 districts spread all over India ( like the 565 Princes’ territories in pre-1947 India) with considerable Muslim populations were endowed with “Muslim First” ( nor SC/ST) development programs. These will have the potential to gradually develop into a federal state of Islamistan out of India (like the concept of Princess-stan proposed by the Nawab of Bhopal, the Chairman of the Princes’ Chamber in June/July 1947 ( but nipped in the bud by Sardar Patel).
8. With Muslim separatism fostered by vote-hungry regional parties ( mostly casteist and dynastic) and two-nation theory as DNA among Muslims noted by Dr Ambedkar in his book, “ Pakistan or Indian Divided” , the dangerously unequal growth rate ( never less than 25% more fertility rate among Moslem women) in Muslim population spells disaster for Hindus, unless effectively addressed in time.
9. As long ago as in the 1952 election manifesto of the Schedule Caste Federation, Dr Ambedkar stated that there is relationship between poverty and population and that unless the runaway growth in population is controlled by effective family planning programs enforced as a matter of policy, poverty could not be brought down. The manifesto even proposed that family planning clinics will be opened in every village and that even drastic measures may be enforced to control the growth in population. Unfortunately, that wise proposition has never been countenanced by other political parties and therefore we have the unenviable fact of India becoming the most populous country in the world with the largest number of below poverty line ( BPL) people, all with a vote so that welfare measures become politically compulsive militating against economic development which requires huge investments. Therefore the fact of India becoming the most populous country must be a warning rather than euphoria. Will politicians continue to engage in power games or will they care for the real welfare and prosperity and power of India, that is Bharat ? This has to be intellectually agitated as the most important item of public discourse for discussion. (959 words)
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