INDIA

1
INDIA
A POPULATION OUT OF CONTROL
2
India was one of the first countries in the world
to try to do something about reducing its
population growth rate.
In 1950 the total population was approximately
360 million. Indias birth rate was 41 per 1000
and its population growth rate was 3 per cent per
year.
In 1952 India set up a population control
programme which aimed to reduce the birth rate by
setting up clinics which provided free
contraceptives and family planning services.
3
Parents were encouraged to use contraceptives in
order to limit the size of their families.
Contraceptives were to be made available to the
whole population even those living in the most
isolated areas of the country.
4
Progress was slow during the 1950s and early
1960s, despite the government increasing its
family planning education services and promoting
the wider use of contraceptives.
In 1967 the birth rate was still around 40 per
1000 and the total population had reached
approximately 520 million. The fertility rate
remained high at 5.7 i.e. the number of
children per woman of child-bearing age.
5
The Minister of Family Planning introduced
several new measures in order to achieve a much
lower birth rate, including

• advertising the importance of birth control in
  newspapers and on radio and television.

• legalising abortion.

• rewarding men who had a vasectomy.

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Women accounted for 95 per cent of all
sterilisations at this time.
Male sterilisation became a more favoured method
of contraception because it was both permanent
and cheap.
Men were encouraged to volunteer for vasectomies.
7
In 1971, a district official in Kerala organised
a family planning fair. During the month the
fair was on for, 60,000 vasectomies were
performed. After his 10 minute operation, each
man received gifts including money, a weeks
food, a lottery ticket, an umbrella, and a bright
sari for his wife.
Between 1967 and 1973, 13 million men were
sterilised.
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However, by the mid-1970s these policies were not
having the desired effect and Indias population
continued to grow at an alarming rate.
There was widespread resistance to the
governments population control programme.
Small families were simply not part of Indian
culture.
9
In 1976 a desperate Indian government turned to
compulsory measures.

• Government employees were required to limit the
  size of their families to three children.

• Enforced sterilisation resulted in 22 million
  people mostly males being sterilised by 1977.

Vasectomy flying squads stopped groups of men
at random and, regardless of their age,
sterilised them.
Widespread opposition led to this policy being
discontinued.
10
In 1984 Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi put the
country on a war footing to reduce the
population growth rate and achieve a two child
per family target by the year 2000.
The push for two-child families resulted in cases
of infanticide.
By 1993 the fertility rate had fallen to 3.4, but
the birth rate remained high at just under 30 per
1000 and the population had climbed to almost 870
million.
A survey of birth control methods in the same
year revealed that sterilisation 76 per cent
was the main method of contraception that people
used. (67 per cent female, 9 per cent male)
11
The ideal family two parents, two
children An Indian family planning poster.
The red triangle is Indias family planning
symbol.
12
From the beginning, Indias population control
policies had always been guided by the perception
that a growing population is a major obstacle to
raising living standards.
In the 1990s there was increasing recognition of
the fact that policies based on setting targets
for contraceptive use or sterilisation had failed
to have any significant effect on Indias
population growth rate.
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In 1994 a New Population Plan (NPP) was
formulated.
Its aim was to reduce Indias fertility rate to
2.1 by 2004.
In addition to ensuring universal access to
contraceptives and promoting a more intensive
programme of family planning education, the NPP
focused on

• primary health care access for mothers and their
  new-born children.

• improving female literacy.

New laws affecting the age of marriage and the
registration of marriages and births were also
passed.
14
Women were the main target of the new
population control policy.
Child Survival and Motherhood programmes were set
up.
The minimum age of marriage was set at 18. All
marriages and births had to be registered.
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A range of incentives were included in the NPP to
encourage people to have smaller families

• People would be more successful in applying for
  jobs, or government loans, if they could produce
  a certificate of sterilisation.

• Low interest loans would be made to authorities
  in urban and rural areas which had been able to
  reproductive health or increased their
  populations awareness of, and access to,
  contraceptives.

• Freezing the population-proportional quota for
  each state in the Lok Sabha. If a state reduced
  its population growth rate, it did not lose
  seats in the Federal Parliament.

16
In 2002 Indias population officially reached one
billion.
Indias population growth rate is continuing to
make it difficult for the country to become more
developed.
17
At current rates of growth Indias population is
expected to reach 1.8 billion within the next
forty years.
Population growth falls to replacement level if
the NPP was to achieve its objective.
18
A cartogram showing the countries of the world
according to their size of population.
19
The impact of Indias recent population control
policies on the age structure of the population.
Age Structure of Indias Population 1997 and 2020