“Procreate and procreate”, is the present motto of church leaders like Bishop Powathil and communal leaders like Vellappalli Natesan. Concerned about the lack of work force, they are cheering up followers to give birth to more children. In Kerala, the Church and the SNDP have initiated several measures, including social counseling and financial assistance to encourage people to procreate. While the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council's Commission for Family has promised to provide an education allowance to the fourth child in a family the SNDP has not yet to draw out its course of action.
The country’s population as per 2011 census is 1.241 billion. It is predicted that that by 2050 it will reach 1.53 billion and overtake China as the world's most populous nation. Feeding all these people will become a somber problem by that time. The apprehension of the Church leaders is that while Hindus and Muslims, the two larger communities in Kerala, are growing, the shrinking Christian population has reason to feel vulnerable.
The root cause of having more children and the subsequent poverty is the lack of education. Education makes one to think reasonably and makes a sensible person to limit his number of children. Bringing up a child by meeting its requirement relating health and education needs tremendous expense and the ordinary people are not able to meet it. Moreover India’s population policy tells a different story.
The New Population Policy was announced in 2000. It has special focus on health and education and envisages the target of stable population by 2045 A.D. The policy includes freezing of Lok Sabha seats at current level of 543 till 2026, compulsory registration of marriage and pregnancy, along with birth and death, cash incentives for compliance with requirements regarding antenatal checkup and many. Under the policy the Government of India has offered an incentive package to model small families. It includes improvement in the facilities for safe abortion, prize to village panchayats and district boards fulfilling the target of model small
families in respect of reducing infant mortality rate and improving literacy. One of the most crucial objectives in our population policy is thus a small family with one or two children.
In this context the levelheadedness of Church leaders and Yogam Secreatry is under question. While they blame people of other communities for procreating profusely they ask their own people to do the same. This stance is absolutely against the National Population Policy. When health experts say that India can no longer sustain large families the advocacy to enhance population growth rate is unwarranted. Our policy makers and political leaders should have a say in this regard.
K A Solaman
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