Reversing family planning

A three-child norm is regressive

India can take pride in the fact that the country has achieved a drop in the total fertility rate (TFR) from a high over five births per woman in 1965 to 2.01 in 2022 without the draconian civil-rights abuses (bar the 21 months of the Emergency) that were imposed on China for 36 years with its one-child policy.

A falling TFR is not, of course, unalloyed good news for the world's most populous country since it implies that India's TFR is below the replacement rate of 2.1.

By 2050, if a study by Lancet is to be believed, the country's TFR is dipping irreversibly to 1.29, suggesting that India may grow old before it grows rich.

There are many approaches to coping with this demographic future, including bolstering health care, training the workforce appropriately, and tweaking insurance products, as western economies have done.

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat's solution of a three-child norm, recently spelt out, should not figure among the demographic coping mechanisms.