Population: Do not misread challenge

The UN Population Division’s projection that India will overtake China as the world’s most populous nation in 2023, four years earlier than expected, has again put the focus on the country’s demographic challenge. India’s population is projected to be 1.429 billion next year, when China will have 1.426 billion. The reason for India overtaking China is not any dramatic increase in its population but the decline in China’s. India’s population will continue to grow till the 2050s, when it is projected to have 1.668 billion people, as China’s drops to 1.317 billion. The world population as such will grow and is set to touch 8 billion on November 15 this year.

The UN agency has credited India with bringing down the total fertility rate (TFR), the average number of children born to a woman. While the population replacement level is 2.1, the TFR in India currently is 2.0, as per the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS). India brought down TFR from 6 in the 1950s to the present level without using coercive measures. The need now is to bring down the TFR in a few states -- UP, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh -- which are also the most populous states. The country’s experience shows that the best strategy to do so is to provide education, nutrition, healthcare, housing and employment to people. These measures should also be specifically focussed on women and children to ensure the best results. The states where the population growth is high are also those where economic growth is low. While high population growth impacts economic growth negatively, economic and social development which benefits all sections brings the population down automatically.

Unfortunately, population growth is sought to be used as a political weapon against some sections of the population. UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has flagged the possibility of "population imbalance" due to the rise in population in some communities; former Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has called for measures to control population and to find a solution to “population explosion”. There is neither population explosion nor imbalance in the country, except the imbalance among the states. Contrary to propaganda, the Muslim fertility rate has registered the sharpest decline in the last two decades, compared to all other religious groups. It dropped to 2.3 in 2019-20 from a high of 4.4 in 1992-93. The need is to provide health, education and development opportunities to the entire population. The real challenge before the country is to take advantage of the demographic dividend before it disappears.