Family Mis-Planning

Context: UP’s new population policy and draft law contrive spectres of political bad faith. They must be reviewed.

Critical analysis of the Uttar Pradesh Population (Control, Stabilisation and Welfare) Bill, 2021

• Punishment as a population control measure: It proposes that any citizen who “violates” a two-child policy not only be barred from contesting local bodies polls — similar restrictions exist in several other states — but also from applying for, or getting promotion in, government jobs, and even receiving government subsidy.
• Based on paranoid demographic vision:  The bill goes contrary to the reality that India is not being threatened by a “population explosion”.
  • The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) and Census data show that in most states and many urban areas, the total fertility rate (TFR) has already reached replacement levels (2.1). 
  • On a national level, TFR had declined from 3.4 in 1994 to 2.2 in 2015.
  • Decadal growth rates have declined across all religious communities, with the fertility rate falling faster among Muslims than in Hindus.
  • Even in populous UP, the TFR has fallen an impressive 1.1 points to 2.7 in the span of a decade — without the state’s coercive measures.
• Discriminatory: Any penal population policy tends to doubly exclude the poor and the marginalised.

Way Forward:

• Focus on economic and social well-being: The success of India’s southern states in containing population growth indicates that economic growth as well as attention to education, health and empowerment of women work far better to disincentivise larger families than punitive measures.
• Empower women: There is also growing evidence that Indian women, across economic and social strata, would have fewer children if they could exercise their choice fully.