In 2019, the United Nations released the World Population Prospects, which reported** that India's population will surpass China's by around 2027. The latest data indicate that the Chinese population is 14100 million, India has reached 13800 million, which means that the time of this transcendence may be brought forward.
However, surpassing China in terms of population is not something to be said for India. In fact, India's huge population has put heavy pressure on environmental, social, and economic development.
India is a country with a large population, and although it is still barely self-sufficient in terms of food problems, the pressure of the food problem is increasing as the population increases.
The national situation of more people and less land has forced a large number of Indians to devote themselves to agriculture and increase the yield of arable land through precision farming, but the economic returns of growing food are very low in modern society, and most of the income is consumed by the farmers themselves, which has exacerbated the widespread poverty of Indians.
The intuitive data reflects India's poverty situation: India's per capita GDP in 2020 is only 2,000 US dollars, only one-fifth of the per capita GDP of Chinese, and even one-third of Indians have a daily income of less than 1 US dollar, which is equivalent to less than 6 yuan of ** yuan5 yuan, and according to India's own estimates, a quarter of the people belong to absolute poverty, with a daily income of less than 30 cents, which is equivalent to less than 2 yuan, which means that in India, the income from a hard day's work may not even be enough to buy a meat bun at a Chinese breakfast restaurant.
Due to India's widespread poverty, the accumulation of social wealth is less, and the consumption power is low, ** a large amount of money needs to be invested in people's livelihood security every year, which undoubtedly limits the scale of investment and seriously affects the development of India's economy.
India's demographic problems are not only reflected in the sheer size of the population, but also in the imbalance in the sex ratio. Long-standing patriarchal attitudes have led to the low status of Indian women, and the heavy dowry system has put many Indian families under tremendous economic pressure.
All these factors have combined to lead to the phenomenon of selective abortion and even female infanticide in India, resulting in a male-to-female sex ratio of 11, which means that 10 out of 110 Indian men are destined to find a spouse.
If you zoom in on the whole of India, then 60 million men could become singles. The core idea of the rewritten copy remains the same, but it focuses more on highlighting India's economic and demographic problems, while emphasizing the relevance of the two.
The centripetal force and stability of Indian society are being severely weakened by the poverty and unemployment caused by the bombing. In rural areas, violence over land grabs among peasants of different ethnicities, castes, religions and geographies is escalating; In cities, the influx of migrant workers has also put heavy pressure on urban management, creating slums, gangs and other problems, exacerbating social injustice.
On the other hand, the widening gap between rich and poor has also created a psychological imbalance among Indians, increasing the risk of social unrest. It all stems from India's runaway population growth.
In the last century, scholars have warned against this. So why hasn't India taken measures such as family planning to control its population?
India's population policy, India put forward the policy of population control in the middle of the last century, and it is also one of the first countries in the world to implement family planning. As early as 1952, India** formulated the "National Population Control Plan" and constantly revised it, which has been used by many ** to this day.
This plan mainly includes the following points: first, the punishment of multiple children, such as the 1976 Family Planning Law, which stipulates that families with two or more children will not be able to obtain loans, housing, jobs and free medical care; The third is the severe punishment of overbirth, such as fines or imprisonment, and even the disqualification of parliamentarians in some states due to overbirth.
1.Preferential treatment is given to families with fewer children, and only children enjoy preferential treatment in terms of work, housing and college admission. At the same time, rural families undergoing sterilization will receive more state subsidies and priority access to water.
2.Late marriage and childbearing are encouraged, and women who have their first child after the age of 21 will be rewarded, and at the same time, if there is a certain time gap between the first child and the second child, there will also be a corresponding reward.
The award criteria vary from state to state, such as that of Maharashtra in western India"Honeymoon program"Couples who have their first child after two years of marriage will receive a reward of 5,000 rupees (about 420 yuan), and if they have their first child after three years of marriage, the reward will be increased to 7,500 rupees (about 630 yuan), which is a considerable subsidy for Indians, especially Indian farmers.
India** has taken a number of measures to control the population. First, doctors and ** are incentivized to perform sterilization procedures by raising salaries and awarding honorary awards, and those who successfully persuade others to undergo vasectomy are rewarded.
In addition, India** has also required family planning teams at all levels** through nationwide population education and awareness-raising campaigns, and has even encouraged parliamentarians to reach out to 1,000 families each year to conduct awareness-raising.
In terms of financial input, India has also given a lot of support. In the 80s of the 20th century, various localities in India used financial allocations to build a large number of family planning projects, and various family planning-related public medical institutions sprung up all over the country.
By 1991, there were more than 150,000 such institutions. These policies have far-reaching implications for the Chinese, and in fact, China's family planning policy has largely borrowed from India's experience.
China's family planning policy has led to population control, while India is still facing demographic pressures after starting to control population growth earlier. This is because India's political system restricts the advancement of national policies.
India's constitution stipulates the distribution of power between the states, states and regions, and the relationship between the state and the region is not a simple subordinate relationship, and many policies formulated by the state will go through a bargaining process in each state, and may be greatly discounted in the end.
Although *** wants to control the population, the local government uses the population as the evaluation criterion in order to obtain more subsidies. This leads to a conflict of direct interests between the local government and the local government, because a decrease in population means that the local government will receive less subsidies from the local government.
In addition, the promotion of family planning in India's vast rural areas requires a lot of human and material resources, which is different from the tasks of poverty alleviation and electrification, and is likely to cause widespread dissatisfaction among farmers.
India's party system is also very special, whether it is the former Congress Party or the current BJP, it is a coalition of multiple classes and castes.
As a result, the contradictions within the party are complex and difficult to resolve, and the ability of the whole party to act in unison is lacking. Political parties lack a clear and concrete political platform and are only united in order to gain a position in power.
When they came to power, they pursued policies not so much in the hope of contributing to the country as in order to demonstrate their "contributions" to consolidate the regime. Therefore, in order to meet the demands of various forces, the Congress Party and the People's Party often appear weak and compromise in their decision-making, and they can only do half of the work, and they dare not advance or retreat.
Nowhere is this more evident than in family planning policies,** which oscillate between the pressure to control the population and the pressure of conservative voters and local forces, unable to introduce strong policies.
Sometimes, even if there are people who want to firmly promote family planning, they will fail because of the opposition.
In 1976, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed family planning, giving birth control to 4 million people within a month, sparking a backlash among the population.
This dissatisfaction was reflected in the following year**, when Indira Gandhi suffered a crushing defeat and her Congress party lost national power. Moralgui Desai, who took over as prime minister, learned his lesson and abandoned the policy of compulsory birth control in favor of voluntary birth control.
However, it is clearly unrealistic for an economically backward India to expect a "voluntary" reduction in fertility, which in practice means abandoning the goal of population control.
As a result, India's population grew rapidly in the 70s, adding 130 million in 10 years.
Indian politicians have learned from Indira's example how devastating forced birth control can be to votes, and in order to please voters, they are afraid to propose compulsory birth control again. Thus, while both the Congress and BJP pay lip service to family planning programs, population control has never been a priority in India's version of the five-year plan.
As a result, although the concept of family planning was introduced very early in India, it was not until 2000 that the first programmatic document on birth control in history was introduced. However, the document only plans to achieve zero population growth by 2045 and establishes a National Population Commission headed by the Prime Minister of India.
In addition, there are a large number of empty promises in the document, such as the fact that the recommendations on how many children a couple should have are not clear. Although this is an advocacy document, it is far from the legal level.
Although India's family planning policy has been in place for many years, its results have not been satisfactory. On the one hand, the punishment for violating the maternity rules is not mandatory, so it rarely serves as a warning. On the other hand, India** does not have a positive attitude towards family planning, and some people even have more than 3 children.
This phenomenon of "upward and downward effect" has caused the Indian people to pay less attention to the advocacy of birth control. The United Nations Population** will therefore criticize India as "a poster child of lack of population control".
India's religion and inefficiency are only part of the problem. India is home to more than 100 ethnic groups, with Hindustani having the largest population, but there are also many Bengalis, Punjabi, Telugu, etc.
In addition, India has a diverse range of religious beliefs, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. This has led ethnic minorities and religions to be wary of population control policies, fearing that population decline will lead to a decline in status, and even considering family planning policies to be a conspiracy by Hindus and Hindus to eliminate minorities.
This conspiracy theory is also reflected in local high-level **, such as a Muslim minister in Jammu and Kashmir who openly stated in an interview: "The family planning program is aimed at reducing the Muslim population in Kashmir, and we must firmly oppose it."
Every Muslim in Kashmir should have four wives and at least one dozen children. ”