Instead of adopting a coercive playbook, there are lessons in all this to address Naidu’s concerns.
Having more children is also your responsibility. You are not doing it for yourself, it is also for the benefit of the nation” — Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s proposal to bring in legislation to incentivise those who have more than two children to reverse the trend of the ageing population in the southern states strikes a moral and alarmist note to the state’s declining fertility rates. Highlighting that the state’s demographic advantage will last till 2047, the Naidu said that his government will bring a law that makes only those with more than two children eligible for local body elections. According to the 2011 census, the median age of states in the South — Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala,Tamil Nadu and Telangana — is higher than several northern states. The median age of Andhra Pradesh in 2011 was 27.6. By 2047, the average age of Andhra’s population would be 40.
There is an obvious political subtext to Naidu’s comments, that have since been echoed by Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin — the delimitation exercise that may end up reducing political representation of the southern states in Parliament after 2026. But, as with several other things, an unwitting casualty of enthusiastic promulgations about population control is women’s rights. Last April, a UN Population Fund report revealed that governments prone to “population anxieties” are “increasingly adopting policies aimed at raising, lowering or maintaining fertility rates.” China’s one-child policy between 1979 and 2015 is an example of women’s bodies being held hostage to population targets. In contrast, India has, barring a brief regress into forced sterilisation during the Emergency, relied on education and empowerment to drive home the importance of family planning. Its results have been borne out by National Family Health Surveys. SBI’s “Precursor to Census 2024: The Fine Prints of a Rapidly Changing Nation” report, released in September, pegs the average annual exponential population growth at 1.2 per cent in 2024, down from 1.63 per cent in 2011. India’s total fertility rate (TFR) — number of children per woman — in 2024 is projected to be 2.122 births per woman, a 0.79 per cent decline from 2023. A TFR of 2.1 is essential for population stability.
Instead of adopting a coercive playbook, there are lessons in all this to address Naidu’s concerns. It involves sex education in schools, disseminating information on reproductive rights and family planning, access to healthcare and the luxury of choice, especially because childcare is expensive and labour-intensive. It requires offering a conducive ecosystem for women to join the labour force. All this would help them make informed choices about their lives and their wombs.
