On Wednesday, the Delhi High Court sought the Centre’s response to ascertain the feasibility of a two-child policy in India to control the country’s population. A petition filed by BJP spokesperson and advocate Ashwini Upadhyay sought that a two-child criterion be made mandatory to access government jobs, subsidies, and schemes; and the withdrawal of statutory rights viz. right to vote, right to contest, right to property, right to free shelter, right to free legal aid etc. for non-compliance.
In the petition, Ashwini argues that a burgeoning population is the root cause of “more than 50% problems in India” which includes overcrowding, crime, domestic violence, mental and physical harassment of women, shortage of resources like water, and fanaticism, to name a few.
For this, Ashwini has asked for the implementation of the Venkatchaliah Commission’s recommendation in the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution which said that an Article 47A be added in the Indian Constitution to say: “Control of population - The State shall endeavour to secure control of population by means of education and implementation of small family norms.” The Commission was instituted in 2000 by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
While the Commission recommended that population be controlled through education and family planning, Ashwini’s petition asks for rather extreme punitive measures. Experts say such measures are more likely to victimise the vulnerable further, and not have the desired effect of decreasing fertility to control population.
The petitioner’s argument
Speaking to TNM, Ashwini argued that India’s resources were not able to sustain its population. He argued that India’s population is 150 crore, in contrast to the 2011 census which pegs it at 121 crore. “There are 122 crore Aadhaar holders in India, while 20% do not have Aadhaar – which is around 25 crore. There are also four crore Bangaldeshis and one crore Rohingya who live here illegally.”
“This is based on some surveys,” he added, when asked about where these numbers were from.
Ashwini said that he has been to several villages around Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, which is part of the National Capital Region, where he found that families kept having more kids even if they had 5-6 girls. “If this law (two child policy) is there, then no matter whether it is a boy or a girl, they will have to stop having kids,” he maintained.
When questioned about the adverse impact of the one-child and two-child policies in China, Ashwini first said that it wouldn’t be fair to compare India and China. “India’s area is roughly 1/3rd of China and the population growth is thrice as much. They may have had adverse effects but at least they have managed to control their population to begin with,” he said.
Does India need such a policy?
This is not the first time that a policy to restrict the number of children Indians can have has been suggested. In fact, 12 Indian states have already had a two-child policy for government employees including Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, and Bihar. Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, and Chhattisgarh, which had implemented the policy, later repealed it.
India’s total fertility rate, as per the National Family Health Survey-4, is 2.2 children per woman, which is slightly higher than 2.1 - the replacement level of fertility. Replacement level is the rate of fertility rate needed to replace both the parents, and stabilise the population. Further, states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu have managed to bring down their fertility rates without policing the number of kids a family can have.
Citing the above facts, Alok Vajpeyi, Head of Knowledge Management and Core Grants and Director Programme at Population Foundation India, argues that eight states that have the two-child policy have noticed a skewed child sex ratio. This has been noticed in China as well, which replaced its one-child policy with a two-child one in 2015.
“In a country like India, if people can only have two kids, they will prefer having two boys. It will increase unsafe abortions, adversely impacting female mortality. Further, many women do not have access to contraception either, which means that abortions are done as proxy to family planning measures, often at the risk of life itself. A coercive policy like this bound to increase these issues,” Alok told TNM.
However, Ashwini argued that sex selective abortion is illegal. “Just because people do it anyway, does not mean we cannot have a law. That way, rape and murder are also crimes, but people still do it. And we can always increase the penalty for sex selection. Right now, it is seven years, why can’t we increase it to 10 or 20 years?” he told TNM.
Addressing causes behind larger families
Dr Sylvia Karpagam said that the petition does not take into account the multiple socio-economic factors that are responsible for why families and women may have more than two children.
“Poverty has a direct link to larger families. There are also many social determinants, like caste, gender equality, labour rights…The only way the health of a population can be ensured are by addressing all of these in a multidisciplinary way. But these aren’t addressed because of the continuous comparison of countries and a target driven approach without looking at the structural and social factors,” Dr Sylvia said.
She pointed out that the relationship between better education and agency for women and better family planning has often been established. “The more educated she is and the more agency she has, the likelier she has to have a smaller family.”
Targeting already vulnerable communities
The petition claims to be “for the benefit of poor, disabled, economically weaker section and socially-economically down trodden people”. He also cited an unnamed survey at a Ghaziabad jail to argue that 90% inmates are from larger families, living in poverty, forcing them to turn to crime.
However, Dr Sylvia argued that there is a tendency within governments to blame communities over improving public services like education, access to livelihood, and healthcare. This comes into play in this situation as well, because certain oppressed and ostracised communities are also more likely to have larger families due to lack of awareness and access as well as poverty.
“A two-child policy in this scenario becomes over simplistic, victimising those who are most vulnerable and are most likely to benefit from government schemes and subsidies. It’s like punishing people who least deserve punishment,” Dr Sylvia said.
What can be done to control population?
Ashwini has argued in the petition that poverty alleviation, equitable distribution, access to education and health and sustainable development will remain unrealised unless effective population control is done. While this may have some truth to it, experts say that a coercive policy is no way to go about it.
“Women with better agency are able to make better choices about their reproductive health. If they have access to property, equal pay, and legal services, they are less likely to put up with threats and coercion,” Dr Sylvia argued. “Educated women are likely to marry late, which is linked to them having fewer children,” Alok added.
Further, a policy like this is unlikely to work, given India’s larger young population. Even if one woman has only one child, the population is likely to grow for several decades before it stabilises, Alok said. “Even if you have coercive measures like the two-child policy, it will take several years to reflect, and may not even have the desired effect. Such policies are frankly not needed to India if family planning, healthcare and education can be made accessible,” he asserted.