Demography India Vol. 27, No. 1 (1998)

From the Chief Editor’s Desk

SINCE 1987, it has become customary to celebrate or observe each year the llth of July, as the World Population Day, on the recommendations of the United Nations. According to the best estimates of the Population Division of the United Nations, it was on this day, 11th of July 1987, that the population of the world reached and just crossed the 5 billion mark, adding to this number roughly 230,000 during the day 49,000 in India alone. Every year on this day the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) identifies a particular aspect of the population problem for discussion hi seminars, meetings and conferences with a view, presumably, to highlight the magnitude and dimensions of the population problem particularly for the developing countries. The topics suggested in the past few years, included; population, development and the urban future; reproductive rights and reproductive health and
this year' approaching the world of six billion'.

India, in addition to the various rituals of seminars and conferences, TV shows and radio talks on this day, there is also the ritual of a 'Population Race' on the morning of 11 July. Last year, in 1997, the race was flagged off by no less a dignitary than the Prime Minister of India, Mr. I. K. Gujral, himself with a number of persons running with a T-shirt marked 'One is Fun' and this year the race is with a T-shirt marked 'Did India invent the zero' in the front and' 1,000,000,000.... To Count a Billion Indian?' at the back. Last year the 'motif largesse' behind the logo seems to be to encourage couples to stop with one child and this year it seems to be to satisfy ourselves with the ability to count a billion, irrespective of the number of zero's because India invented zero ! While the first one seems to have an action thrust irrespective of its feasibility or appropriateness, this year's one seems to symbolize a state of hopelessness, since we have to passively watch and count as population figures surge forward. The macro level impact of this surging population growth in India is being felt in every walk of life; growing inadequacy of potable water, traffic congestion, air pollution, swelling numbers of dwellers in 'jhuggi-jhopadis' in cities and towns, pathetic over-crowding in buses and trains etc. etc. Life in India is becoming terrible to live and according to the statement of Mr. Ram Jethmalani, Urban Development Minister, 'Delhi is a dying city', he said, 'of the Capital's slums and falling standards of quality of life' (Times of India, dated 9th May '98). Not all of the reasons for these deteriorating conditions of life can be placed at the doorsteps of rapid growth of population (the debate is still on as to what percentage of economic boom of the Asian Tigers, including South Korea, China, Thialand and Malaysia experienced in the late eighties and the nineties can be attributed to their rapid reduction in their fertility levels and population growth rates); but it is now well recognised that a sizable portion of their economic boom can be attributed to their rapid fertility transition. With such empirically striking experiences of the impact of rapid reductions in population growth rates in countries of East Asia and within India in the southern states, it looks ironical that we still continue to derive a morbid pleasure in just counting and celebrating the population day. The tragedy is that in states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan where the fertility levels and population growth rates continue to be high, a very high proportion of births are unwanted births, unwanted by the couples themselves as expressed by the mothers in the National Family Health Survey. If only we can offer acceptable, high quality contraceptive services to couples who do not want any more children nor their next child within the next two years, the population problem would have been largely licked and the beneficial effects of other developmental efforts would begin to have a tangible pay-off. There is absolutely no need for coercion or compulsion but just offer of services to those who need them. If on the Population Day such services are initiated by programme personnel in those areas where the need is the most, there will be meaning and significance in any celebration of the Population Day. Seminars and races on this day have become more of entertainment and fun for the already converted and who could afford the luxury of 'Nero Is Fiddling when Rome is burning'. I hope from the next year onwards the Population Day will be observed, not celebrated (there is nothing to celebrate), in India with more meaningful action programmes to meet the needs of people of this country, especially the women, a large number of whom continue to be burdened with unwanted pregnancies (estimated at 30 per cent in Uttar Pradesh) even after fifty years of Independence and almost the same period of implementation of family planning programmes.

In this issue of Demography India, which is intended to commemorate the 'Fiftieth Year' of Independence of India in 1947, we have included six invited articles on the demographic and population policy related developments in the country during the past fifty years, with topics and scholars identified by the Editorial Committee. There are ten other articles submitted by scholars for publication included as usual after peer review.

K. Srinivasan
Chief Editor, Demography India