The Two-child policy may sound a bit bizarre to many Indians, but I think we will have to mull over it as a measure to control our enormous population.
China is the most populous country in the world but India is not far behind, it is predicted that India will overtake china by 2030. China adopted one child policy 37 years ago (though recently it has been changed to two child policy), this has contributed to its huge growth which we have seen. China has covered an extra mile in the case of development compared to developed and developing countries. It has emerged as the second largest economy in the world (an economy of 11.384 trillion only behind the USA with an economy of 17.968 trillion ). Now even the world’s economies flounder if there is any imbalance in its economy. So, simply China’s measures in addition to population control have worked in its favour.
With limited resources and low economy (1.877 trillion as of 2013 ) it’s very difficult to provide world class facility to its citizens. If this trend continues, the government would not be able to provide the good standard of living to its citizens. The problem in the case of India is, even more, appalling because we have one of the largest population density in the world (china has much larger area than India). So population control measures are the need of the hour. It’s not the fact that no government has tried this Idea, in late 1970 at the time of emergency Sanjay Gandhi (son of then P.M Smt. Indira Gandhi) saw population control a way forward but sadly the population control measures were applied forcefully and in a skewed manner. Apart from that governments have ran awareness campaigns, tried incentives for having fewer children but these measures have not helped much ( probably due to lack strong will for it by the governments).
It’s indubitable that this is not an easy task, but I think unless and until we take this fact (of population control) into account, overall development of the county hard to imagine. Though there are some flaws in china’s approach for population control but it’s is beyond doubt that we can learn a lot of things from them. Their one child policy didn’t auger well for them now because it has created the shortage of labour, sex ratio imbalance, and increase in savings to name few, that’s why they have revised their policy to two child policy. I think two child policy is all correct for implementation. Problems which lie in front of India is that firstly, China is a communist country so they can enforce any policy thy want it’s not the case for India s we are a democratic country. Secondly, there might be an ethical reason to enforce a policy etc.
So, one may argue that will this work for India? I think absolutely yes. If there is a strong will from the government and people side it’s is not an unviable task. I think enforcing policy is not the only option for controlling pollution. The government can first run more intensive campaigns for family planning; second they include it in the educational curriculum to inform students about the population increase and its effect on society etc. The good news is, people of India are now realising the problem of increasing population. With increasing reach of education they are well aware of the increasing expenses with every child, so even people are conscious about it.
Hence, Two-child policy seems practicable for India for controlling population not by enforcement of any law or policy but by the choice of people. What do you think?
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