population bill

Why UP’s Population Control Bill Can Prove Disastrous for Women, Poor Families

The fact that the Yogi Adityanath government always wants to use strong-arm tactics, instead of better non-coercive measures, to achieve its objectives has been demonstrated again by its latest population control bill.

Yogi Adityanath, now widely accepted by the Sangh parivar and its supporters, including many BJP chief ministers, as a “path-breaking leader and lawmaker”, has come out with a draconian draft Bill to control the population in the state. It would be most unfortunate if this too is accepted as something worth emulating by others.

The draft Bill put out in the public domain by the Uttar Pradesh Law Commission on July 7 is badly drafted and replete with various threats and blandishments which will do little to bring down the birth rate in the state but will certainly do much to harm poor families. It will impact most adversely women across communities and classes, depriving them of their rights and rendering them even more vulnerable to ill health, social stigma and violence.

The government has brought in this draft Bill along with its document, Population Policy 2021-30, to achieve its stated goal of bringing down the total fertility rate (TFR) in the state from 2.8 to 2.1 over the next decade. This is something that has been achieved in several states in the country without taking recourse to coercive measures but, unfortunately, the Uttar Pradesh government is not willing to learn any lessons from them.

In fact, it is now widely accepted that using coercion to control the population is not only violative of basic human rights and women’s rights but also a completely ineffective and inefficient way of achieving its objective.

Illustration of a family with two kids. Photo: Sandy Millar/Unsplash

Incentives and disincentives

The draft Bill consists of five chapters with several sections in each. I will try and deal with some of its important and extremely objectionable contents.

Chapter II deals with incentives and disincentives. The incentives apply, for the most part, to those in the government service. If an employee (assumed to be a male by the draft) or his spouse undergoes sterilisation after the birth of two children, he will be entitled to many incentives like promotion, increments and other benefits with regard to healthcare, educational facilities for children, etc. If this sterilisation is undertaken by him or his wife after the birth of one child, even more incentives are promised.

Also read: UP’s Draft Population Control Bill Proposes Two Child Policy, Penalties for Violation

Critics have spoken about the corruption and lacunae in the implementation which are bound to be the consequences of the policy, apart from the unbelievable red tape and paperwork that will become necessary.

In the extremely patriarchal society that we inhabit, the burden of sterilisation is often borne by women. This means that attempts to access the incentives will not only adversely affect the health of many women, but other problems can also arise. For example, if the woman is pressured into undergoing sterilisation after the birth of one child, in the case of this child being female or in the case of this child losing its life, there is every probability of the woman being divorced. The man is then free to marry again while the woman, faces an extremely uncertain future because of the fact that she has been sterilised. This is not an exaggerated assumption. There are innumerable cases of women facing domestic violence, divorce and death because of the fact that they have only given birth to girls.

In the incentives section, below poverty line (BPL) families will be eligible for a payment of Rs 1 lakh if either the husband or the wife gets sterilised after the birth of one child, a daughter; if this is done after the birth of one child, a son, the payment will be Rs 80,000. There is every probability that it will be the wife who will undergo sterilisation in most cases, risking her health, well-being and security.

The disincentives mentioned are extremely harsh. Government employees who have more than two children will forego promotions and increments. All those who violate the two-child norm will be penalised by losing access to all government-sponsored welfare schemes; subsidised rations will be limited to only four persons per family; and violators will be debarred from contesting elections to local bodies. In addition, other disincentives (not listed or described) can also be prescribed.

It has been established by various surveys like the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) that it is those at the lowest rungs of social and economic hierarchies who have more than two children. These sections, comprising largely of Dalits, Adivasis, people from backward castes and the poorer sections of minority communities, have been denied access to education, healthcare and the opportunity for institutional deliveries leading to high maternal mortality and infant mortality rates.

These are the very factors, for which they are certainly not responsible, that lead to their having several children. Punishing them for what are acts of omission and commission by the government is equivalent to punishing them for their poverty and the sins of others. Punishing them by depriving them of welfare measures designed precisely to alleviate their poverty will condemn them to remain poorer, more malnourished and hungry and, therefore, more liable to produce more children.

Local body elections were designed to take democracy and development closer to the poor and deprived. For this to be meaningful, they must be given every encouragement to participate in these elections as candidates. Already, the huge and ever-increasing use of money power in elections at this level has meant that poor candidates are disadvantaged. If this law is enacted, then poor people who are even eligible to stand as candidates will be drastically reduced and democracy will suffer further constriction.

Another disincentive debars those having more than two children from taking up government jobs. This will do the greatest harm to members of the SC and ST communities, who will be deprived in large numbers from accessing their right to reservation in government jobs. As it is, this right is being curtailed regularly, and the enactment of this draft Bill will strike a cruel blow at the aspirations of the most exploited and needy citizens for a better future.

The final disincentive in this section is that those violating the two-child norm will lose access to all government subsidies. It is unthinkable that in a situation where the coronavirus pandemic has reduced so many to complete penury, millions of poor families will be deprived of even the pittance that the government puts into their bank accounts at long intervals. Those who are homeless will remain so.

In a sadistic twist, the disincentives include a clause that says that that the government can prescribe other disincentives also. Can any government be given blanket permission to prescribe cruel punishments at its will and pleasure without any sanction at all? This clause flies in the face of any understanding of citizens’ rights.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty/The Wire.

Dangerous repercussions

The draft law seems to have been drafted with complete insensitivity to the havoc already being wrought by son preference in our extremely patriarchal society. According to the most recent figures, the sex ratio in Uttar Pradesh is 1000 males: 789 females. The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PCPNDT) that was enacted precisely to remedy this situation lies forgotten and in shambles today. In such a situation, if this draft law is enacted, there is no doubt that female foeticide will grow exponentially with disastrous implications for the status of women and social relations in the state.

The draft law’s final chapter, ‘Duties of the Government’, mentions the establishment of maternity centres in all government health centres. The fact that this is a duty to be performed at a later date is proof of the fact that such maternity centres are not in existence today. In that case, even if all women wanted to avail themselves of the incentives promised by this draft Bill and avoid being victimised by the disincentives, it would just not be possible for them to do so because of the simple fact that the government has not established the centres.

This is just an indication of what is wrong with this draft law and why it needs to be scrapped.

Also read: Higher Female Foeticide, Targeted Harassment: UP’s Population Control Bill May Be Dangerous

Better examples and non-coercive measures

The TFR of 2.1 that the Uttar Pradesh government wants to achieve in a decade by enacting this law has already been achieved in other states without having taken recourse to any coercive laws.

If we take the example of Kerala, whose TFR is 1.7 (even lower than what Uttar Pradesh aspires to reach after a decade), it has to be noted that the literacy rate for women in that state is 91%. It is only 61% in Uttar Pradesh, where even the ability to write one’s name is taken as a sign of being literate. The percentage of institutional births is 99% in Kerala while it is only 67% in Uttar Pradesh, and the infant mortality rate in Kerala is seven deaths for 10,000 live births while it is an unconscionably high 47 in Uttar Pradesh. It is these high indicators that have resulted in a considerable reduction in Kerala’s birth rate.

Also read: A Two-Child Policy Won’t Take India Closer to ‘Vikas’

Kerala and other states like Tamil Nadu have consistently spent money on health infrastructure, education, pre-natal and post-natal care and other welfare measures. This is what UP will have to do if it wants to achieve the goals it has set for itself.

Unfortunately, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh prefers to project himself as a strong man willing to use strong-arm measures. He boasts of improving law and order by giving the police complete freedom to ‘thoko’ (slang for hit hard or kill) but the crime rate, far from coming down, has only increased. His efforts to curb the birth rate in the state by coming down heavily on poor families and by inflicting great cruelties on poor women are also likely to prove counter-productive.

It is imperative that this draft law on population control be opposed in every way possible. Its enactment will prove devastating for millions in the state who are struggling to exist in sub-human conditions. It will deal a terrible blow to women in the state who are already facing the most terrible violence, discrimination and deprivation.

Note: The Uttar Pradesh Law Commission had invited suggestions and amendments to the Draft Law to be submitted by July 19. The All India Democratic Women’s Association has submitted a Memorandum containing most of the points mentioned above.

Subhashini Ali is a former member of parliament from Kanpur and politburo member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Six Months Before Assembly Elections, Yogi Worries About Excessive Procreation

Narendra Modi’s praise of India’s “demographic dividend” notwithstanding, the right-wing via the Uttar Pradesh chief minister may have come up with an idea close to the heart of India’s chattering classes.

We must concede that the right-wing is the quickest with the polemical gun.

And its timing on the draw is immaculate as well.

For some years now, the honourable Narendra Modi has, in speech after speech, educated the republic and the wider world as to how India’s “demographic dividend” is among its biggest plus points.

But as the polling booth beckons in the all-important Uttar Pradesh, that Modi polemic now yields to its opposite.

Suddenly, population, the Yogi tells us, is India’s biggest curse.

Never mind that India’s population growth rate has nearly halved since 2001, and that our total fertility rate, across all communities, it needs to be emphasised, has similarly shown a sharp decline during the said period.

Indeed, reputed demographic studies suggest that India will soon reach a “replacement level” of population growth, with one birth compensating one death.

So, what explains the Yogi’s alarm?

Put simply, the following:

Whereas after the failure of the politics of Kamandal in the West Bengal elections, the social restructuring of the Union cabinet came rather brazenly to embrace the politics of Mandal (stealing the enemy’s weaponry as it were), the right-wing knows it must nevertheless foreground Kamandal in its campaign in Uttar Pradesh.

As the Indian Express puts it plainly, the call to population control is clearly intended as a communal “dog whistle,” to polarise the electorate along familiar lines.

The Yogi clearly states that the exercise is meant to restore the “balance between communities.”

More comprehensively, Narendra Modi’s praise of India’s “demographic dividend” notwithstanding, the right-wing via the feisty Yogi may have come up with an idea close to the heart of India’s chattering classes; and one that may be trusted to deflect a whole bunch of failures that beset the record of the BJP, both at the Centre and in the states that it rules.

Ergo, not the failures of governance but an alleged population boom is responsible for:

gruelling price rise;
unprecedented joblessness;
collapse of the health services during the pandemic, with the corpses in the Ganga testifying to population explosion;
the misery of migrant labour, the homeless, and the hungry;
unconscionable cruelties vented on women, Dalits and minorities;
collapse of management during the second phase of the pandemic;
the failure of the state to put money into the hands of the millions whom the virus-related shutdowns rendered destitute;

To name just the most blatant failures only.

In one word now – population – this litany of failures is sought to be fig-leafed with the canny knowledge that the base of the right-wing, which includes opinion-makers and media houses as well, may be trusted to say ‘yes indeed’.

And any reference to facts be damned.

Or argument, for that matter, however compelling.

For example, if population is at bottom responsible for economic woes, China ought to be the poorest nation in the world.

But guess what, they have a GDP five times that of Bharat, and forging ahead for more.

Indeed, having suffered badly from gender imbalance and consequent social ills, China, if anything, is encouraging its citizens to go for larger, three-child families.

And, please, let us not be told that this is because China is a totalitarian state and we are a democracy. In ordinary times this cliché may have washed, but not after what we have seen of India over the last seven years.

Think also that if an 80% Hindu majority pretends to worry about being overtaken by a 14% Muslim minority, how genuine must seem the anxiety of white Americans and English people at the prospect of being swamped by Asians and other non-white citizens, given that they now hover around just a half of their populations?

Clearly, extrapolating from Yogiji’s worry about “community imbalance” in Uttar Pradesh etc., White people in those countries must be thought to be more than justified in seeking a reversal of their demographic profiles?

Where may that leave the darling expatriate Indians, whom Narendra Modi so high-fives on his visits, thither?

One may of course put on record a more basic poser: how should it matter in a secular-democratic republic which community of citizens grow slower or faster, even if the ideological landscape of Bharat now may revile such a democratic and non-discriminatory argument?

Just to recall: the British cabinet currently has Britains of Indian and Pakistani origin in the most important portfolios, and America has an Indian-origin woman for its vice-president—all things that our right-wing never fails to laud.

What then of our own Muslim Indians, for a start?

Also Read: India Needs Employment Generation, Not Population Control

The nay-sayers

Yogi’s problems seem, however, to emerge from the right-wing itself.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, for example, has already expressed disagreement with the proposed law that the Yogi seeks to bring forth. And for a canny reason: if citizens are to be penalised for having more than two children, it is Hindus who would stand to lose most from the measure, since Muslim representation in government employment is forgettable anyway.

Nor would the measure help to further the call often made to Hindus by diehard right-wingers to have as large families as they can. Even the figure of 40 has been mentioned.

Allies

More sensibly, allies like the Janata Dal (United) have correctly pointed out that the most effective way to reduce family size is to invest heavily in women’s education, and in education generally, as well as in the health sector.

Everywhere in the world, history shows that family size comes down as purchasing power increases and living standards improve.

Consider that in the Kashmir province – population 68% of the Jammu & Kashmir state – the total fertility rate is 1.7, considerably less than the national average!

But that, most uncomfortably, is an argument for delivering better and more rational governance, when the whole point and purpose of the Yogi putsch is to deflect attention from governance issues across the board.

Given that the captive media will no doubt go to town with the “threat” of population explosion and laud the Yogi and his camp for the alacrity in the matter, it will be no easy task for the political opposition to meet this new polemic.

When a Trump or a Yogi says it is thus, it is thus, alas.

‘Population Explosion’: The Myth that Refuses to Go

Even more dangerously, demographically driven population regulation measures, ignore women’s rights over their own bodies.

The spectre of population control has emerged to haunt us yet again. The Prime Minister of India, in his Independence Day speech on the August 15, expressed concern about “population explosion creating various problems for the coming generations” and complemented those who “follow the policy of the small family” as contributing to the development of the country, commending it as a form of patriotism.

In the past too, “population explosion” has been perceived and articulated as a primary cause of poverty, unemployment, ill-health, lack of education, environmental degradation, climate change and even traffic jams in cities.

The bogey of “population explosion” has, over the past 73 years, held sway in the country with successive governments having consistently deployed it to impose incentives or disincentives across sectors – from local governance, to health care, education, agriculture, and so on – for those who do or do not adhere to the two child norm respectively.

Also read: Modi and the Bogey of ‘Population Explosion’

Over 30 private member Bills regarding population control introduced in parliament since Independence – both lapsed and some pending since – are evidence of this.

MP Rakesh Sinha. Photo: Twiiter/@RakeshSinha01

Very recently, on July 12, 2019, MP Rakesh Sinha, tabled ‘The Population Regulation Bill’ in the Rajya Sabha. The Bill stipulates several incentives for families that have no more than two children. These include income tax rebates and free healthcare for parents, subsidies and loans for plots and houses. The Bill identifies penalties for contravening the norm, including reduced access to the public distribution system (PDS), higher interest rates on loans, lower interest on savings and disqualification from being an elected representative.

The Bill also suggests that government employees should give an undertaking that they will not have more than two children. In fact, in 2016, the Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment (ironically), had announced in the context of scholarship for students (from marginalised communities) that “not more than two children of the same parents or guardians will be eligible”.

The propagation of the image of “population explosion” has led to the development of a “crisis mentality” that has generated extreme and narrow demographic assertions, challenged the entitlements of people (such as subsidised food grains through the PDS) and more recently, questioned their patriotism which will impact particularly the most vulnerable and marginalised sections.

The state has often presumed that it has done enough for the people and that the State’s provisioning of health care, education and food is adequate. The frequent refrain is that the existence of poverty, unemployment, under-nutrition, poor access to education and health care, etc., are because of the “uncontrolled” population growth, despite the State’s initiatives.

However, these references to “population explosion” and the need for ‘‘population control” or “stabilisation” completely ignore the emerging evidence that the total fertility rate (TFR) in the country is already down to 2.2 as of 2015-16, marginally above the 2.1 replacement rate, in almost 24 states. According to NFHS 4, the Desired Fertility Rate is 1.8, which clearly indicates that women prefer to have no more than two children.

Further, the 2011 Census data also showed that the decadal growth rate had reduced to 17.7% from 21.5% over 2001. Despite these shifts, population is expected to grow for a period of time due to the phenomenon of “Population Momentum” as a “higher number of couples now have fewer children” compared to the earlier situation of fewer couples having more children.

Also read: Economic Survey Predicts Sharp Slowdown in Population Growth Over Next Two Decades

The prevailing anxieties about the population, however exaggerated, have been the underpinnings for many top-down, target-driven, often coercive and occasionally violent, population control programmes. During the Emergency (1975-77), mass sterilisation was vigorously pursued by the state, and all developmental efforts were subordinated to the population control programme.

Women, particularly from marginalised sections, have been the targets for the achievement of demographic goals. Women’s bodies have been central to the population rhetoric, which portrays them as responsible; control of women’s fertility and violation of women’s bodies have remained the state’s obsession in “controlling” population. Access to contraception or family planning as it is popularly known, is primarily seen as an instrument of population control, not as a reproductive right.

Further, sterilisation, permanent contraception and other invasive measures are primarily forced on women, with limited efforts to enhance male responsibility and acceptance of contraception.

The sterilisation camp deaths at Bilaspur district in Chhattisgarh on November 8, 2014, where surgeries were performed in complete violation of all standard operating procedures, and subsequent events amounted to serious violation of some very basic health rights of the affected women. Eighty-three women – predominantly from Dalit, tribal, and Other Backward Classes (OBC) communities – underwent sterilisation and more than a dozen women succumbed to death post-surgery.

This tragedy reflected the “malaise of the public health system” but was also an “emphatic and sad reminder of the state’s preoccupation with population control and targets”.

Women’s groups, women activists and researchers have repeatedly denounced the two-child norm in all its avatars as both anti-women and anti-poor, as they adversely affect both democratic and reproductive rights of women, who are at the receiving end. They have argued that the imposition of the norm and the disincentives will disproportionately impact women from Dalits, Adivasi and religious minority communities.

The iteration of population growth as a primary cause of India’s economic and other social problems is to distract the country from the failure of India’s development model. Photo: Neha Singh/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

These are women who are already deprived and would bear the brunt of the State’s withdrawal of ameliorative measures, even if these are pitiably inadequate.

Several studies on the impact of the two child norm have highlighted sex selection, increased discrimination against the girl child, and worsening of the already declining sex ratio. According to these studies, there has been a drop in sex ratio after the inception of two child norm. This is particularly of serious concern given the strong son-preference in society.

Even when the husbands in Panchayati Raj institutions were faced with the threat of disqualification, it was the women or wives who bore the brunt of this discriminatory policy through desertion or abandonment, divorce, forced abortion, forced adoption etc., despite not having had any say or decision in the matter of family size or in the holding of political power.

Also read: Civil Society Slams Renewed Push for ‘Two-Child’ Norm in Rajya Sabha

Moreover, the demographically driven population control policies and programmes legitimise the control of women’s bodies and fertility ignoring promotion of women’s health rights, including access to quality health information and care including maternal health, reproductive choices with safe and quality contraception. These policies treat women as objects of control and surveillance, and violate the basic feminist tenets of reproductive and sexual rights and bodily integrity.

The iteration of population growth as a primary cause of India’s economic and other social problems is to distract the country from the failure of India’s development model adopted since Independence that is responsible for the severe economic and other crises, whose outcomes are characterised by growing inequities, mal-development, poverty and ill health. Further, the unnecessary focus on ‘controlling population’, and coercive two child norm policies to address it, are nothing short of gross violation of the human rights of the people, especially women of the country. It violates the right to equality guaranteed to all citizens of the country under Article 14 of the constitution of India.

The government must not enact policies in contravention of the principles laid down in the National Population Policy that require a focus on the well-being of people by providing opportunities and choices to all in every sphere – health (including maternal, neonatal and child), safe and quality contraception, education, food, housing, political and economic opportunities and others that can effectively and automatically bring about a decline in the fertility rate.

Sarojini Nadimpally is the co-convenor, Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, and has researched on two-child norm and its impact on PRI’s extensively.