One hopes country, especially protagonists of large families, will listen to him and work for smaller families. As of now Population control is India's top concern. This problem is getting more and more acute day by day with nearly 22 million children being added every year. Undoubtedly. India is over-populated. over 15 % of world population lives in India but the country has just 2.4 % of the land area of the world. So, lets us see what can be done? Should we follow China's "one family, one child" policy or should we put a break on human reproduction or what is called anti-natalism for the time being?
In the late 1970s, the Chinese government introduced a number of measures to reduce the country's birth rate and one of the most important of measures was a one-child policy. It decreed that couples in China could only have one child.
It was a distinct family planning policy, quite different from most other countries which focus on providing contraceptive options to prevent birth of a child . The policy allowed rural parents a second child if the first was a daughter. The policy allowed exceptions for some groups, including ethnic minorities. The policy was there for over three decades but was abandoned at the end of 2015.
However, China's one-child policy proved a misnomer. For nearly 30 of the 37 years. it existed (1979–2015) more than half of all parents in China were allowed to have a second child.
And if pursued in India where about 20 % are minorities( Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists and Zoroastrians), the policy will only add to population imbalances and saffron party will never allow this. The latest move in Kashmir is a case in point. Actually, the hidden agenda behind the move on the abrogation of Kashmir special status is to see in long run Muslim dominated Kashmir valley turns into a Hindu- majority region.
So we are left with only choice of family planning- "educational, comprehensive medical or social services enabling individuals, including minors, to determine freely the number and spacing of their children and to select the means by which this may be achieved. All the stakeholders have to ensure the cent percent implementation of family planning. Unfortunately, at least 12.3% married women in the age group of 15-49 year have no access to any family planning method, according to National Family Health Survey-4. There are many shortcomings in the system and we need to focus fully to remove these. In 2015, 225 million women will not have access to family planning,
Health care professionals have identified ten most essential components for effective and successful family planning. They are: supportive policies, affordable Services, contraceptive security, trained staff, evidence-based programming, leadership & management, effective communication, client-centered care, easy Access and integrated services. A checklist suggests most of them missing during implementation or if adopted are half-heartily pursued.
The aggressive family planning during emergency period in late seventies still haunt the nation and somehow proving a deterrent to success of family planning. There could be some exaggeration but a measure like mass sterilization is still unpopular in rural India , despite the fact that i is the the best possible method for population control. However, it is not easy to garner support for sterilization, mainly because of taboos ad misconceptions associated with it.
Anyway, we also need to debate the anti-natalism- a belief that humans shouldn't have children. Though, its a nihilist rhetoric idea having far-reaching consequences, there is no harm to know about it. Whereas natalism promotes child-bearing and parenthood as desirable and seeks financial and social incentives for people to reproduce, anti-natalism is assigns a negative value to birth. Anti-natalists argue that people should abstain from procreation because it is morally bad.The concern for genetic inheritance and worries about overpopulation and the environment have led to this belief.
Even Gautama Buddha had spoken of anti-natalism. Sir Hari Singh, a distinguished educationist, poet, and novelist had stated on his book that Oblivious of the suffering to which life is subject, Buddha had said;" man begets children, and is thus the cause of old age and death. If he would only realize what suffering he would add to by his act, he would desist from the procreation of children; and so stop the operation of old age and death".
And the Encratites observed that birth leads to death. In order to conquer death, people should desist from procreation: "not produce fresh fodder for death". The Manichaeans, the Bogomils and the Cathars believed that procreation sentences the soul to imprisonment in evil matter. They saw procreation as an instrument of an evil god, demiurge, or of Satan that imprisons the divine element in matter and thus causes the divine element to suffer. (Quotes from Wikipedia)
Human being, is a freethinker soul and his thinking goes beyond eternity. So, its not surprising that there are dozens of anti-natalist groups, active on social media. Whatever may be the methods, there is no denying, India, urgently. need to stop the population explosion. Explosion of any kind always brings destruction .