Why isn-t Indian government doing anything to control population growth?

Understand that the problems of population growth areoften exaggerated in the mainstream media. This is not to say that problems don’t exist -- or they are not quite worrisome.

(Courtesy: balcanicaucaso.org)

The world's population will be maxed out at around 10-11 billion. And from thereon, the number will sustainably decrease.

So, predicting doomsday out of a high number of inhabitants is quite absurd in many parts.

Also, don’t forget that the narration of "natural resources are depleting" has existed for decades now. Do you really see them depleting? Moreover, today, when we're advancing with technology at such a great pace? NO!

A lot of conspiracy theories have been tossed around as to why mainstream media is obsessed predicting "the end" because of the high population.

Many say it comes largely because of the western media where the American government, to curb economic growth of other countries, propagated that we must preserve natural resources like coal and iron ore.

There is also a belief that governments in different countries reluctantly use this concept to hide their inadequate and ineffective policies. "We can’t do anything. It's all happening because of the population growth" … "We want to endpoverty. But the population growth is slowing down the progress."

Honestly, it often does feel like this whole "population explosion" narrative is no more than propaganda of the governments to hide their own failures.

There are many economists around the world who do not consider high population as a major problem. Sure, there are many even on the other side; Thomas Malthus and his 1738'svision (Malthusian catastrophe) being the most popular one. However, at large, aside from a select group of critique, not many people are imperatively concerned about population growth.

All these being said, there's no denying that a large population is one of the factors behind major economic and social problems like poverty and even war.

And there's no denying that the world must consider ways to slow down the population growth.

But that's very unlikely to happen -- more so in India where our policies don't necessarily focus on fundamental reasons of the problems. We're a country that seeks quick-fix.

[For instance, our literacy rate is quite less. So, what did the government do? Instead of improving the quality of education and encourage mass participation, they made policies that say a student cannot fail until class 8 or 9 no matter how she/he performs. GREAT FIX to lower literacy rate, is it not?]

Similarly, at large, we don’t care about population growth in India. There's poverty, unemployment, less access to clean water, load shedding and other problems. No one cares about the fundamental reasons behind these issues. In our country, everything is solvable through subsidies and reservations.

Yes, there are several measures in action to control population in the country. But there seems to be no sense of urgency, or care for that matter. In 2017, the government launched free contraceptive shots for women. It also launched pills. Both of which are available for free at medical colleges and district hospitals.

How successful that measure is after a year and a half -- no one knows. In fact, it's quite evident that the majority of people do not even know about such initiatives.

Aside from that, different government departments and NGOs do work on micro-level to educate people on family planning. But their impact doesn’t seem to be big.

Another major problem is the taboo around sex education. In 2019, we're still discussing whether sex education should be allowed in schools. At a time when **** is readily accessible and accessed by a 13-year-old teen, we're still hiding behind the castle of outdated and hypocritical 'sanskaari' culture.

There are also many other social and political reasons. For instance, if the Indian government does bring a China-like two-child policy, it can have massive repercussion on its political ambitions. The oppositions can use it against the ruling party.

All in all, India is a conservative nation where topics like sex are not to be discussed in public. And Indian governments (BJP, Congress and more) are too sanskaari to interfere in the family matter of the families. 'As long as they vote for us, let them have sex,' they all believe.

So, population growth remains a never-mind problem for us.