Boon or Bane?

Plato’s epic The Republic’ tells the story of two mythical city-states: one believes in moderation while the other believes in consumerism. Unable to sustain its large population, the second city-state casts avaricious eyes on its neighbouring territories, plunging the country into war. Read US and China for the second city-state, and the analogy is complete. The question Plato raised is the essence of the population debate of today: Is human population the issue, or is it the resources it consumes?

After the disastrous electoral consequences of Sanjay Gandhi's infamous population control experiments of the Emergency era, all Governments fought shy of taking any measures for controlling our burgeoning population. However, alarm bells started ringing after publication of "World Population Prospects 2019: Highlights" by the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs which predicted that with a population of about 147 crore, India would be the most populous country in the world in 2027.

PM Modi, in his Independence Day 2019 speech, called population explosion a challenge for the nation and exhorted the Centre and states to devise schemes to control population. But there was no official reaction to the UNFPA Report not even the Government's mandatory debunking of reports published by Western agencies.

However, in what could be taken as the Government's thinking, Amitabh Kant, former CEO of Niti Aayog, and currently a G20 Sherpa, listed out the opportunities that our rising population will open up for us. According to Mr. Kant, India will become 'a powerhouse of human capital and the largest producer of human resources in the world.' He suggested that we should invest in the overall well-being of our youth in areas like 'health, nutrition, education, skill development and financial inclusion," which would appear a tall order, given the abysmal level of expenditure of the Government on healthcare and education.

Mr. Kant further averred that our Total Fertility Rate is now 2.0 - below the replacement level of 2.1, which is hard to digest because India's population is projected to grow for the next forty years, reaching a peak of 166.8 crore in the mid 2060s.