Less than a week ago, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath released the state’s new population policy and revealed that the state plans to reduce its growth rate to 2.1% in the next 10 years. The state plans to do so by introducing a two-child norm and encouraging voluntary sterilisation. A draft bill on population control has now been uploaded on the state’s Law Commission website and people can provide suggestions until July 19.
Uttar Pradesh’s proposal has sparked similar demands in Telangana and Karnataka. While Telangana’s BJP MLA MLA Raja Singh wrote to Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao urging him to implement a similar policy in Telangana, BJP party’s national general secretary CT Ravi voiced his demand for the same in Karnataka.
Speaking to TNM, Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director of Population Foundation of India, said that there is no evidence of the efficacy of a two-child policy. “In the context of Uttar Pradesh, the sex ratio at birth for children born in the last five years is 903 girls for every 1,000 boys. Stringent population control in the state would lead to an increase in these practices and unsafe abortions given the strong son-preference in India. Instead, the state should work towards addressing the high, unmet need for family planning (18.1% as per NFHS 4), which is much higher than the national average of 13%,” she said.
On Thursday, July 15, Raja Singh wrote to Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao urging him to implement the two-child policy bill in the state. In the letter the BJP MLA has said there are consequences and disadvantages of having a high population in the state.
The letter read, “In today's (COVID-19) pandemic era, whether it is about vaccination or development, the growing population has an adverse impact on the basic necessities of life. It is time to ponder over how we control the population so that future generations get better access to education, health, and better quality of life. Excessive population puts undue pressure on the available natural resources, ecological and economic resources respectively.”
He further demanded that those who don’t follow the norm should not be given tax incentives and other benefits. Raja Singh is a Telangana legislator from the BJP and he has been in the news several times in the past for his communal statements that often target the Muslim community. Interestingly, the MLA’s request to the Chief Minister did not have the hues of his usual rhetoric, though the BJP does periodically raise the bogey of rising Muslim population.
The draft bill in Uttar Pradesh, and suggestions by the BJP to introduce a two-child norm both in other states has given rise to sharp criticism from opposition parties. Reacting to UP’s draft bill, Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, on Thursday, pointed out that the Union government had already stated in December 2020 that a two-child policy cannot be brought about in the country due to a declining Total Fertility Ratio (TFR). Owaisi said that it violated Article 21 of the Constitution.
“The proposal of the Uttar Pradesh government violates Article 21. It will cause harm to women as 93% of sterilisation happens among women in the country. Women should be given the right to decide,” Owaisi had stated. Incidentally, in several parts of the country, societies often ignore a woman’s agency over her own body and her reproductive rights. This stands in stark violation of Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees protection of life and personal liberty. There have been growing debates stressing a woman’s consent is essential and vital in decisions concerning her own body.
Karnataka Congress MLA and Tamil Nadu incharge Dinesh Gundu Rao took to Twitter to respond to CT Ravi’s demand for a similar policy in Karnataka. Rao tweeted, "CT Ravi, Uttar Pradesh population control policy is coercive and has unintended consequences. Also Karnataka has a Fertility Rate of 1.7%, which is below the replacement rate of 2.1%. We are doing well without such unscientific policies, so please hold your thoughts."
The politics and the question of coercion of women aside, even the numbers show that a population control bill for the southern states makes no sense. For this, it’s important to understand Total Fertility Rate and at how much the figure is for each of the states.
The average number of children a woman would have in the course of her child-bearing age is defined as the Total Fertility Rate. According to the Fifth National Family Health Survey carried out in 2019-2020, the south Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Kerala have very similar TFR, and are below the national average.
According to data from 2016, India has a TFR of 2.2. The NHFS data completed in few states show that Andhra Pradesh has a TFR of 1.5 in the urban region and 1.8 in the rural region. In Kerala, both urban and rural areas have a TFR of 1.8. In Karnataka and Telangana, the urban areas have a TFR of 1.5 and 1.8 respectively while the rural areas have a TFR of 1.8 and 1.7. Tamil Nadu’s report isn’t available among the 18 states reports published by the survey.
Bihar had the highest TFR of 2.4 in urban areas and 3.1 children per woman in rural areas. While Gujarat has a TFR of 1.6 in urban areas and 2 in rural areas, Maharashtra has a TFR of only 1.5 in urban areas and 1.9 in rural areas. While Uttar Pradesh has a TFR of 2.7, through the new proposal, the state plans to bring it down to 2.1 by the end of 10 years.
This means, the south Indian states mentioned above have a TFR lower than the country’s TFR of 2.2. World over, 2.1 is considered as the replacement fertility level, which indicates that if the new generation has 2.1 births for every woman, then the new generation will be able to exactly replace its parent’s generation in terms of numbers. In simple terms, two children for two parents to replace them, while taking into account scenarios where some children may not survive adulthood due to lack of access to healthcare.
Reacting to Karnataka BJP leader’s call for a two-child norm, Poonam Muttreja said, “It is surprising to see calls for a two-child norm coming from a developed state like Karnataka with good socio economic and health indicators. According to the National Family Health Survey of 2019-2020, the Total Fertility Rate in Karnataka is 1.7, which is less than the national average of 2.2 and much below replacement level fertility of 2.1, which is when the population replaces itself. Data from the NFHS-5 shows that the desired fertility rate (the average number of children women of reproductive age desire to have) is even lower at 1.38. This shows that even without a coercive population policy, men and women want smaller families.”
Suggesting a better strategy, the Population Foundation of India said, “Greater investments in education, empowerment of women and girls, strengthening of health systems are the best strategies to bring down fertility levels in the state. We need to learn from the experiences of south Indian states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu, which have made adequate investments in health and socioeconomic development and have brought down fertility levels without any coercion.”
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