Sunday, April 20, 2003		Books

Holistic approach to population problem
Rakesh Datta

We the Billion: A social Psychological Perspective on India’s population
by Ragini Sen. Sage Publication, New Delhi. 2003.Pages 323. Rs 480.

EVERY year India adds to its population the population of countries such as Cameroon (14.7 mn), Kazakhstan (15.4 mn), Madagascar (15.1mn) and Netherlands (15.8mn). According to U.N. demographers, by 2016 India will have more people than Europe and in the next three decades it will overtake China as a most populous country in the world.

How the population explosion can be kept in check, forms the subject matter of Ragini Sen’s We the Billion: A Social Psychological Perspective on India’s Population.

The book reasons that fertility issues are not dependent on the individual and fertility rates follow social trends in under or overpopulated nations. The book provides a new approach to addressing the issue of population stabilisation by focussing on social changes, cultural complexities and transformative processes.

According to Sen, the new population policy is out, but as per one of the members of the committee that drafted the policy, "It is a lovely document which can be framed and hung on the wall". In fact, what complicates the problem of population explosion in India is the low literacy rate and low status accorded to the women.

While most Asian countries that experienced rapid economic growth during the 70s and 80s had fixed the goal of achieving universal enrolment in basic education by 1965, it still appears a distant dream in India.

Divided into seven chapters, the book is enriched with ample empirical data, figures, maps, posters, appendices and a long list of selected bibliography which is well documented.

The study raises the need to dispel the myth that minorities are responsible for overpopulation in the country. Low fertility rate recorded in states with a high percentage of Muslim and Christian population, attests the fact that higher levels of fecundity attributed to minorities is a misnomer. This calls for elimination of the ‘us vs them’ notion at the earliest, since communal divide is inimical to social change.

For a solution to the population problem to be effective, it must go beyond population control to ensure greater empowerment and autonomy for women. Policy measures need to be undertaken to rectify the sex ratio imbalance.

According to the author , the media can play a meaningful role in this context as also in addressing misconceptions regarding health and reproduction.

Sen highlights the adoption of the state of Tamil Nadu as a model for using non-coercive methods to bring down the population rate. There is a need to decentralise the population issue and frame district-specific strategies. Any success in terms of achieving lower fertility and gender sensitivity in these districts must be highlighted and replicated at other places, for motivation is an important tool of social change.

According to author, the scarcity of economic resources in India has made population stabilisation an area of high-priority concern.

The book by Ragini Sen is relevant for policy makers, demographers, social scientists, activists and the general public.