Dire consequences of tremendous population growth in India

Dire consequences of tremendous population growth in India

The 'Sone ki chiriya', now. 

Just yesterday, the Times of India published a report on the trend of population growth in India, and several other nations, officially conducted by the United Nations. And to be honest, statistical figures aren't favourable for our nation. It is estimated that by 2028, India will surpass China to become the most populated nation of the world, with more than 1.45 billion people. Although a number of measures had been adopted by the federal government of India as well as several state governments, there's no way we can hope to see a drop in the total population.

One thing that is often misunderstood by most people in my locality is the fact that 'population growth rate' isn't actually the population growth itself. Although it's rather simple, mathematically speaking, still elaborating it a little bit would help, I guess. Basically, annual population growth is the total increase in population over an entire year. On the other hand, population growth rate is actually the total population rise divided by the total initial population, expressed in percentage. It is true that the overall population growth rate of India has decreased, but unless it falls to something less than 0%, population will continue to grow annually.

The main reason behind this rather disheartening level of population growth in our country is that, from around 1900s, our ancestors gladly enjoyed raising around 5-10 children in total. In the fertile plains of the Indo-Gangetic lands, the Brahmin families started the bloody practice of 'Kaulinya'. Originally, Kaulinya was initiated by Ballal Sen, a king of Bengal, to improve and educate the society as a whole, but soon it turned into a sort of business, in which the high-caste Brahmin started marrying dozens of wives each. And indeed, what a thing that was! Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, my favourite author, had captured the evils of this practice well in his immortal lines of 'Kapalkundala', where we see what the Bengali Brahmins were up to at that time.

Projected model of India's population figure by 2028. 

But other castes were not so innocent either. Mostly everyone, from around the 1800s, had started fathering quite possibly as many children as they could! And how stupid they actually were... they didn't even realize that while population was increasing thus, there was no way of creating more land for them all. There was a time when our country was hailed as the golden bird, 'Sone ki chiriya'. And what has happened to that golden bird now? Not everything can be blamed on those invaders and plunderers. No one prevented our ancestors from standing united, from researching more scientific things and actually contribute something to the society. No, they were too busy searching for 'Moksha', but indeed they had their fair share of 'Kama' and 'Artha' as well. How else can we explain such a dramatic increase in the population of this land?

Let us consider a simple mathematical model to see what happens when the population goes on increasing thus, with every generation. For simplicity, I'm using the most techniques here, because the ultimate conclusion is what is important.

Let there be P(1) number of people at a village, which has a total cultivable land of 20 hectres. Let us assume (hypothetically), P(1) = 20, constitued by 10 men and 10 women of child-bearing age. Now, in the first generation, there are only 20 people thus, constituting 10 families. For simplifying the model even further, let us consider the village an isolated system, cut off from surrounding villages and townships. So, initially, all the 10 families are dependent on those farms for feeding themselves and selling the crop to residents of other villages.

Initially, the average distribution of lands per family is: 20/10 = 2 hectres/family. Without going into further details on how much they can earn from that amount of area available (I'm not into farming, :\ ), let us safely assume that they are more than satisfied, financially. Now, it is well-known that with financial stability comes education. However, in our land, the only sort of education our ancestors were eager to let their children learn a few scriptures, some nonsense philosophical rumblings (such as "Brahman is the only truth, and the world is an illusion", "Body can die, but the soul can't!"), a little bit of math (Like "What's 1+3=?") and so on. Indeed, our people had always wanted to achieve 'Moksha', because life was, according to them, a suffering and it should never be enjoyed!

So, so sagely our brave ancestors were that each of these families, over a duration of 10 years, raised 4 children. For simplicity, let us assume that all the people were 25 years of age at first, and this initial year is assumed to be 1900. So, in 1910, the total population had become 20 + 4(10) = 60.

Once again, to simplify the concept nonsensically further, let's assume that there's a sex-ratio of 1000/1000 (Thank God! At least there's no female infanticide yet!). So,of these 40 children born, 20 are male and the other 20 are female. Now, lets hop on to 1930. Majority of these children are in 20-30 years age-group, and their parents are eager to see the faces and hear the joyous laughter of their grandchildren. So, in addition to the 10 original families, 20 new families are established between their 40 children. The average age of the people of the first generation would be around 55 each, and let us assume that the average age of death then was 60 years. So, the folks can still enjoy 5 extra years of comfort, listening to 'Bhagwat Gita', discussing how ill life is, scolding their children for being so greedy and each considering himself to be a sort of sage who has not known lust or greed throughout his/her entire life.

Malthusian catastrophe, the inevitable future of India
if population growth isn't controlled. 

Now, over a duration of 10 years from 1930, these second-generation families raise a total of 4 children each. So much prosperity is there, why shouldn't they? So, P(1940) (the population of the village in 1940) = 60 + 4(20) - 20 = 120, including the sad demise of the founders of the village. Now, And in 1960, the 20 families of the second-generation make the third-generation folks marry as well, raising the number of families to 20 + 40 = 60. Now, the problems being to arise. The average distribution of land per family becomes 20/60 = 1/3 hectres, which is rather insufficient. Some of the villagers have to go outside, to look for work. And crime rates increase, because of unequal distribution of lands. The more powerful families can't satisfied with 1/3 of a hectre of land, so they grab more chunks of lands from the rest, making a section poorer. Increase in poverty leads to increase in crime-rate. More people = More mismanagement, more robbers! Over the generations, some will turn to secondary and tertiary sectors of economy, but population continues to improve nonetheless, finally forcing the people to rely more on non-primary sectors for income.

And all this happens within 60 years! So imagine, what has happened to our country over a duration of several hundred years? The only thing, as Malthus would say, that kept the population from growing even further is the lack of medical facilities before 1900s. Birth-rates were not much lower then, just the death rate happened to be higher. But with advancements in modern science (the Apara Vidya, as most holy men of India would say, and take advantage of, nonetheless), infant mortality rates have fallen, and average life-expectancy has increased. That gave these holy ancestors of ours even more time and opportunity to multiplify their population. Sweet, isn't it?

Is this the India we want? There's still time to change, and we must change!

During the days of the Mauryan empire, India used to have a third of the world's gold, and today we are 129th, when it comes to per capita income. And all this is due to population growth. Were our ancestors any better than dogs or rabbits? Little bit, I guess.

Human population increases geometrically, while resources rise arithmetically, to simply Malthus's Iron Law of the population. But yet, with proper planning, with proper birth-control, all this could have been prevented. But no! It didn't happen! Ok, so we are the ones who would have to pay the price for the insolence of our ancestors. And it is our sacred duty to allow our future generations a better tomorrow. Thus, we should do whatever we can to control population growth of India.