The Narendra Modi Government must act swiftly to defuse the population bomb before disaster explodes. This requires medium and long-term planning and a firm implementation of strategies. It also needs political will
A matter which Mr Narendra Modi’s Government needs to treat as an urgent priority is India’s rapidly-growing population. It is now 1.27 billion (2014) against China’s 1.36 billion. In 2040, it is expected to rise to 1.52 billion, outstripping China’s 1.45 billion; and, in 2050, it is expected to be 1.69 billion against China’s 1.31 billion. If this does not worry the country, one wonders what will. The first question is: How will the country feed this gargantuan mass now that the green revolution has lost its momentumIJ Even if the green revolution has a second coming, the question of land and water availability for farming will remain. On an average, it takes 1,000 tonnes of water to produce one tonne of food grain. India now has 17 per cent of the world’s population and only about two per cent of the globe’s land area.
Besides hunger, malnutrition and death — and India is no stranger to any one of them — food grain shortages fuel inflation as well. A rise in food grain’s prices is often the driving force behind a general price rise, the consequences of which need hardly be spelt out both in terms of developmental activity and political stability. The latter — indeed, the country’s democratic system itself — can be seriously threatened by a growing army of unemployed youngsters whose anger and frustration is all the greater because they are in the midst of a glittering and expanding world of consumer goods and services open to only those with sufficient income. They as well as a growing segment of society are increasingly consumed by feelings of both absolute and relative deprivation. The former is a result of physical abuse, starvation and poverty, and the latter, whose theoretical construct has been shaped by a number of sociologists beginning with Robert K Merton and Walter Runciman, is triggered by the discrepancy between expectation and achievement and comparison with the achievements of others.
Runciman identifies four pre-conditions that are necessary for experiencing a feeling of relative deprivation: Person A does not have X. Person A knows of other persons who have X. Person A wants to have X. Person A believes that obtaining X is a realistic objective. Failure stokes anger. Both forms of deprivation lead to extremism and fanatical and violent mass movements including those that resort to terrorism. In his seminal work, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Eric Hoffer writes, “It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things that excites people to revolt. A popular revolt in Soviet Russia [the book was first published in 1951 when the country was very much intact] is hardly likely before the people get a real taste of the good life.”
In India, an increasingly large number of people, particularly those in the rapidly growing middle class, enjoy the good life in various degrees, and those who cannot afford to, see it all around them. The result is simmering discontent and the emergence of extremist mass movements of the Islamist and Maoist varieties. Of course, they have not yet spread all over the country. But a rise in their level of violence which, even if it does not swamp the country, will disrupt life and derail development over increasingly wider areas.
The argument that food grain can always be imported to overcome shortages assumes that supplies from abroad will always be available. This may not be the case. Besides, there is the question of foreign exchange availability given growing imports in other areas and the drain on account of increasing fossil fuel imports. In any case, there will be the question: Should foreign exchange be spent on food grain imports when one can prevent the need for it by bringing down the rate of population growthIJ
There are other compelling reasons for stepping up the family planning programme besides considerations of security and the need to contain inflation and accelerate growth. The pressure of population is extending agriculture, infrastructure — roads, railway lines, for example — into animal habitats, leading to frequent human-animal conflicts with deadly consequences for animals. Besides, growing population and prosperity has meant more private petrol/diesel-powered transport and more pollution. Consider the case of Delhi. It has over four million registered vehicles and it adds well over a thousand new personal vehicles every day on its roads. What makes things worse is that a very large number vehicles in Delhi run on diesel and, according to the Centre for Science and Environment’s estimates, their total particulate emission nearly equals that from 30,000 diesel buses. Besides, there are the trucks and buses running on diesel. Not only that, diesel cars account for close to 60 per cent of new car sales in Delhi.
Diesel engines, emitting more smoke, respirable suspended particulate matter and nitrogen oxide in the air, are far more polluting than petrol engines, and the World Health Organisation has pronounced diesel particulates to be carcinogens. Besides, they also cause diseases ranging from bronchitis and asthma to lung infections and birth defects. RSPM’s presence in the capital’s air is now touching 250 micrograms per cubic meter, four times the prescribed level, and the concentration of nitrogen oxide (NOx) is 50-55 ig/m3 — way above the normal. Not surprisingly, air pollution has reduced lung functions in 43.5 per cent of Delhi’s school children and accounts for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder being 4.1 times higher among Delhi’s school children than their counterparts in the rest of India.
No less disastrous in its consequences is water pollution. A source of a wide variety of water-borne diseases, it owes much to the country’s burgeoning population and its human and material waste. The cleansing of Ganga, the soul of India, must be the first step toward the purification of the country’s principal rivers, their tributaries and all large water bodies. But efforts in this direction will continue to be neutralised if the population keeps on burgeoning.
The relentless, continuing population growth, therefore, poses a serious threat on a multiplicity of fronts ranging from economic growth and development to national security and public health.Unfortunately, efforts to contain it have been fitful and inadequate, mainly as a result of inadequate political will and an approach that is too wide and multi-focal to be effective. Mr Modi’s Government must give a long, hard look and begin taking strong, effective measures.
