A middle class Indian Family
Image credit: Flickr

India, the land of a billion folks! The experience of living in one of the densely populated countries on earth is truly unique and has a direct string attached to our quality of life.

India houses over 17.5% of the world's population despite being covering 2.4% of its land area. With 1.33+ Billion count stands at the second position in the list of the population count just one rank behind China which has 1.38+ Billion population.

India is so populated that the population of each of its states can be equated with several countries worldwide. It's a bit hard to digest that the number of people living in the state of Uttar Pradesh is nearly equal to those of living in Brazil, despite its several times smaller than it. Same is with Maharashtra which is comparable with Japan, Gujarat with France, Karnataka with the United Kingdom and many more...

Meanwhile, as the growth rate is concerned, India has 1.1% growth rate as compared to China which has 0.6% and if we go as per the figures than India can possibly overtake China and dethrone it by the first spot in the near future i.e in 2028 or 2030.

The rising population of India is often characterized as an antagonist who's leading our country into a bottomless well of poverty and dragging us down in the race of becoming a powerful and mature economy.

We are flooded on with different figures for several years which include comparisons with countries ahead of us in such things like China and we often consider our debates on population always end on the Chinese ethos of population control. The so-called and one characterized as the protagonist to us, "The Chinese One-Child Policy".


The Chinese One-Child Policy
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Back in 1979 when China introduced it, its population of 969 million grew at a rate of 1.3% and currently it is 1.39 billion growing at 0.6% and this dip in rate was achievable due to this policy.

As the name suggests, the government of China allowed their resident couples to have only one child and later in 1980 amended the policy to allow the family of rural China to have a second child if the first child was a girl.

It existed for more than 3 decades until the Chinese government made extended the limit to two children. The policy which brought down, the population growth rate of China may or may not have been able to achieve its true purpose or not, but it's undeniable that it is not at all feasible on humanitarian grounds.

China is a one-party state with almost authoritarian touch in its governance style where the association democratical values are carried out on a prominent basis. And for a democratic country like India which claims itself to be the largest democracy in the world can't adopt such a path of population control as China did.

But we Indians are fed with several quotes with strings attached to that same idea for several decades from our so-called politicians, which we call our NETAS, claiming the rise in population the main reason behind the falling apart of our country on the international platform from other countries.

For a moment let's consider their point of view of accepting one or two-child policy but forcing mothers to do so? Won't it be against our fundamental values which have been proudly quoted by them in their speeches and social media posts?

Population growth is disadvantageous for our country at the moment (keeping the financial profile of our country in mind) and this has to be accepted without a strain but the way in which it's been aimed to get rid off is questionable.

I may sound like in favour of the increment of the population but it's not.

Now looking at it from another perspective, the massive population growth has made India the youngest country in the world having half of its population below 25 years in age. The numbers are very encouraging as they can be turned into the largest workforce in the world if all of them get properly skilled and groomed to surge India towards an economical superpower.


Youth
Image credit: Telegraph India

And as per the exploitation of resources is concerned, the non-renewable energy forms are dominating the market currently, but if the above things go as per they are mentioned then the awareness regarding renewable energy can be spread easily among the youths and India can see a grand scale in energy transformation.

Bringing the issue of the increment of pressure on land into the picture, which has to occupy the soaring number of people and provide them with comfortable shelter, I think the spreading of awareness, as well as the increase of literacy rate, is eventually going to out-pour the decrements in population and hatch a comfortable figure.

There's every solution possible out there to tackle the massive issue which has currently surged our nation nothing but misery. And the problem can be solved without bringing the one or two-child policy into the wildest dreams.

But the lawmakers do not seem to solve it in a straight forward manner and wanna tackle it by forcefully imposing the policy in a form of law to the citizens, through bringing in private member bills in the parliament and the government's ministers keeping forward the will of the central government to do so.

And if they do so in the near future then there's no doubt in the fact that the bill will get swiftly passed through both of the houses of the parliament as the government is on a rampage of fulfilling the key issues which suit their agenda.

Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi took the recent Independence day speech as an opportunity to highlight the issue of population explosion and said that:


We have to think, can we do justice to the aspirations of our children? there is a need to have a greater discussion and awareness on population explosion.
Narendra Modi
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He's right and has made his point up to the mark but the things happening in the parliament don't keep a line with his words which were spoken from such an important Democratic pedestal on the independence day.

The government should also consider his words which were delivered in the same speech. He said:

"The government aims to decrease its presence in the daily lives of Indians and make their involvement or effect natural in the personal decision making of India's citizens which will feel them that they are really a citizen of a democratic country."

I really think that if the government is truly interested in curbing with the population explosion then there are other means to do it. There's no compulsion or an intense demand uprising to follow what China has done, we can make it happen within our constitutional boundaries too.


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