Withered ‘family planning’ : A collector was named ‘Nirodh Kumar’ and PM Rajiv Gandhi was misled

New Delhi: The population control debate is back in focus with the announcement of Assam Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, that people would henceforth get official benefits only if they follow small family norms.

As expected a ‘communal’ spin has been given to the issue by some politicians.
One could here look into other anecdotes and trends that shaped the country’s experience with ‘family planning’ measures and data and statistics. 

Blogger at Buddha's feet

In the book ‘Head Count – Memoirs of a Demographer’ Ashish Bose talks about the mid-eighties when officials and even minister(s) would mislead the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi with ‘figures and achievements’ which were never there. 

Bose, who had created the acronym BIMARU (precisely to denote Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh), even claimed that Rajiv Gandhi later transferred some officials out of the ministry.

During Emergency slapped by Indira Gandhi, of course ‘forced vasectomies’ at the instance of Sanjay Gandhi made news globally and is still being recalled with all sense of anguish and sorrow.
It was argued that Muslims were largely the ‘victims’ of such a policy.

In the book, Bose later recalled, “There is no historical evidence to prove that compulsory sterilization helps population stabilization. I have yet to find such instances of forced vasectomies in the history of the world”

There was also a time when a bureaucrat in Kerala got the name ‘Nirodh Kumar’. His 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.

Of course, the bureaucrat later became a Minister under Rajiv Gandhi.

Those were the days 

There was yet another major episode with regard to population control efforts by the central government when a 116-member National Commission on Population was set up. This happened during the turn of the new century on May 11, 2000. It was to be chaired by the Prime Minister.

The commission had all ministers, chief ministers, captains of industry and eminent representatives from various walks of life. In a statement, the then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee said India crossing the one billion mark in population "is a serious matter that is both a cause for concern and introspection".

He also had said the runaway population growth was bound to have a serious impact on the nation’s economic, natural and other resources.

Let us come back to BIMARU states. In the late eighties when Rajiv Gandhi was still the Prime Minister and confronting more challenging issues like the Bofors scandal and the Ayodhya dispute, the birth rate in these states was around 38-39 per 1000 for six years (from 1983 to 1988). This was five-six points higher than the national average.

There is yet another curious factor. It was around this time in a blatant paradoxical manner, Uttar Pradesh would always bag first or second prize for achieving ‘family planning targets’. It was essentially 'mutual admiration club' affairs so much inherent in Delhi culture.

 

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.
On this backdrop, Asish Bose later said in a media interview: “There is demographic fundamentalism. People are fanatical about having sons and preferably two”. 
This craze resulted in significant sex ratio drop in states such as Haryana as well.
Around 2011-12, there were rise in cases of rape.

The slogan ‘Beti ho ya Bete. Bache Do hi Acchey (Girl or a Boy, Two Kids is best)’ was actually only a hogwash.  

In terms of social taboo and using measures like IUD, it was found that ‘irregular bleeding’ due to this only caused inconvenience to women. As it is, Indian women used to shun ‘social contacts and would not visit temples’ during periods.

Child spacing was also not very successful. There was a stiff resistance as women even in circa 2021, are looked upon ‘suspiciously’ if they are not pregnant within a year or about 18 months of marriage.  

Studies had revealed that health workers and officials from the Family Planning department or Family Planning Association of India always found it easier to convince couples who have already had ‘certain numbers of children --- two or three’ as they want.

Even in the decade of 2000 and beyond, it was a social practice for middle class families to have ‘a full family’ – two-three children and preferably only one daughter. 

It was only at a much later stage and especially among Hindu white collared working class that people opted for one child. 

And that too perhaps more due to practical and economic compulsion as the number of husband-wife/couples working became an acceptable norm.  

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