The nation comes first.
“..... In the national interest, every family should have three children and limit themselves to that” -- said Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat in Delhi.
Guess what is common between the Chinese Communist Party, Elon Musk and Mohan Bhagwat
Let us get at the 'root' of the answers in a different way.
Family pressure, Infertility and anxiety about the future are common in three prominent global players in the new century - India, China and the US.
The US and India do not have any three-child policy. But it's a fact of life that Elon Musk and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat have something in common – they are both very powerful people who can sway government policies.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is a big proponent of the global depopulation theory.
Earlier this year he said that low birth rate was the primary factor in the fall of Rome and all civilisations.
“People who have kids do need to have 3 kids to make up for those who have 0 or 1 kid or population will collapse,” Musk advocated on X. Musk himself is the father of 14 children with five different women.
“I’m doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis,” he had said in 2022. Births per woman in the US stands at 1.6, according to World Bank data of 2023.
America had a birth rate of three per woman last in the mid-1960s.
In May 2021, the politburo of the Chinese Communist Party adopted a three-child policy, scrapping the two-child policy of 2016. Till 2016, China had a one-child policy.
China was the world’s populous country until 2023, when India surpassed it.
China’s current birth rate (2023) stands at one child per woman. The birth rate was three in the early 1980s.
There has been a continuous, steady fall in the birth rate in these three countries. But there are socio-economic challenges in achieving the objectives.
In India, states such as Bihar, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh continue to have high fertility rates, while others such as Delhi, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have sustained below-replacement fertility.
“This duality reflects differences in economic opportunities, access to healthcare, education levels, and prevailing gender and social norms,” according to the United Nations Population Fund.
A 2025 World Population Report survey covering 14,000 respondents identified job insecurity, housing constraints and lack of reliable childcare as big reasons deterring families in India from having more children.
Infertility, anxiety about the future, and family pressure were other reasons. In China as well, high cost of living and life pressures have been identified as factors that have made couples apprehensive about the three-child policy.
The Xi Jinping government has adopted tax deductions, expanded childcare services and optimised leave policies to support childcare to help the three-child policy.
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| Photo shopping - The Telegraph, Kolkata |
At 1.46 billion, India is the world's most populous nation but the total fertility rate has dropped to less than two children per woman, according to the UN Population Fund's 2025 report. The birth rate (births per woman in India) was three around 2005.
Bhagwat has said the population must remain "controlled, yet sufficient".
India Story ---- Withered ‘family planning’!
A collector named ‘Nirodh Kumar’ and how PM Rajiv Gandhi was misled
The ‘family planning’ issues are back among the headlines.
But India’s experience with small family norm desire -- Hum Do, Hamare Do - always revolved around unique anecdotes, controversies and even blatant lies.
In the late eighties when Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister and rows such as the Bofors scandal and Ayodhya-Shah Bano disputes were making news, the birth rate in Uttar Pradesh and some northern states was around 38-39 per 1000 for six years (from 1983 to 1988).
This was five points higher than the national average.
It was around this time in a blatant paradoxical manner, Uttar Pradesh would always bag first or second prize for achieving ‘family planning targets’. Of course - Yogi's UP was not yet conceptualised and even Mandal politics beneficiaries - the BSP or Samajwadi Party were not in the scene.
A thought process persisted even in the nineties that ‘sons’ are like old age pensions.
In villages especially in the cow belt, it was believed that more children would mean more hands to earn.
Some years before these, a Babu in the southern state of Kerala got the name ‘Nirodh Kumar’.
S Krishna Kumar’s issue or act of omission or commission was that during his stint as the district collector of Ernakulam in the early 1970s, the massive Nirodh campaign was taken up.
In fact, the name ‘Nirodh’ for the contraceptive was reportedly suggested by a student of Indian Institute of Management.
The word in effect means ‘protection’.
Interestingly, the price was 0.25 paisa for each packet and it was found to be ‘expensive’ and later the price was brought down!
Of course, the bureaucrat later became a Minister under Rajiv Gandhi.
ends
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