Memoranda for Submission to the Chief Ministers of the Two Telugu States.

Articles

Produce Children – We Feed: You Breed

Dt:  20/3/25

Produce Children –

We Feed: You Breed

-          Dr T.H.Chowdary*

The Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh and  Tamilnadu are  vigorously urging the people of their  states to produce  more children.  One ruling party  MP in AP announced rewards to those who produce a third child !  The  reason of this  campaign for furious child production is the fear that if the next  delimitation of constituencies  for the Lok Sabha is undertaken, north India, especially the  Hindu-speaking states like Bihar  and UP will get more  Lok Sabha seats and the South will get less.  Rahul Gandhi  while campaigning for caste census asserted, jitnee Aabaadi, utni sakti  and utni welfare entitlement.  Therefore increased representation for Hindi speaking states may not be unacceptable to the  Indo-Italian MSD – led Congress but is alarming and unacceptable to the  Southern States which implemented birth control schemes to increase their  people’s prosperity.  More child production now onwards can affect political fortunes only after  eighteen yeas  onwards when today’s children can become  voters.  

2. One glaring fact that AP’s Chief minister and his minister son ( b 29 Jan 1983) and Sri Stalin of Tamilnadu and his  son ( b27-11-1977) have only one son each, to succeed  them !  These only one-child, powerful, prosperous politician fathers are  campaigning for more  child production, so that they will have more  voters.  They will increase the social welfare  spending so that more children  for the  common people will not mean poverty. “We feed; you breed ( voters).  Where will the  money come ?  Not only our government will borrow but we demand the central government to give us more.  It is our right to spend .  It is your duty to fund, they seem to assert.

3. Let us see how representation  in Parliament works.  In the United States of America, the Senate ( like our Rajya Sabha) has two members from each of the  fifty states.  California, the most populous with 40 mln people has two Senators . Wyoming with half a million (0.5 mln) people also has two Senators  ! Can we have in our Rajya Sabha ( Council of  States) equal number of seats for all states  - UP with over 200 million and some with  a single digit million people ? 

4. The northern states like Bihar and UP had over 20% growth whereas southern states had 16% growth.  Kerala had lowest growth  4.9 % between 2011 and 2021.  Why 18 lakh Malayalees elect one MP when it takes 27 lakhs in UP ?  asks Sri Sashi Tharoor, the most intellectual MP ( from Kerala) in Inda  and  a free thinker.

5. The child production campaign in AP and  TN is misconceived.  It is for the  benefit of the  ruling families  of Parivar vaad leaders.  The nation must find a better solution to north-south sharing  of parliament’s seats.  There must be rewards for prudence and disincentives for proliferation.

6. The north-south controversy is disintegrative  of the nation.  Bharat is not a federation of states. It is according to our constitution Union of States.  The former designation of territories as Presidencies, Provinces, Princedoms / Nawabis was given up.  The territories are  designated as states.  Article-3 of the  Constitution  enables creation of new states like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and  Telangana by dividing existing states.

7. The creation of linguistic states was opposed by statesmen like Dr Ambedkar and Dr K M Munshi but populism prevailed.  The linguistic state of Andhra Pradesh ( created in 1956) could not endure.  It split into two in 2014, after three stormy agitations for split. (580 words)

END