It’s already been more than a year of introduction ‘Population Regulation Bill, 2019’ before parliament, calling for taking action against the people having more than two children. The bill was introduced by MP Rakesh Sinha, a founding member of India Policy Foundation, an RSS-affiliated non-profit think tank. The bill was signed by 125 MP; they had written to President and asked him to implement this two child policy. It’s not like suddenly this ides of population control came in mind of current government but the previous governments have also indentified this problem and had taken steps for controlling it in a democratic way. Most of us must remember the slogan ‘hum do, hamare do’ which was much spoken slogan in earlier decade. But this current proposed bill has power to change social fabric of India.
If the bill is passed, it will render the ordinary otherwise extraordinary position of system exclusion. This will allow the Government to leave children and their parents to die due to lack of food, health care facilities, housing facilities etc. According to the proposed bill the person with more than two children will be given fewer government services. One provision in the bill is that person with more than two children will be disqualified from contesting for public offices. The bill is has turned dangerous by by attaching reproductive lives and children to direct exclusion from the polity.
Mr. Anil Desai a Shiv Sena member got inspired from this bill and proposed in Feb, 2019 amendment in Article 47A of the constitution to include:-
“The State shall promote small family norms by offering incentives in taxes, employment, education etc. to its people who keep their family limited to two children and shall withdraw every concession from and deprive such incentives to those not adhering to small family norm, to keep the growing population under control.”
But all these are not required in India Now. The proposed bill is not based on any statistical data but on political beliefs of parties. Even PM of India Narendra Modi said in his Independence Day speech those people who have two children are responsible, it means that according to him everyone else is irresponsible.
Current data shows that there is no explosion of Population. Instead the trend is going on in opposite direction. According to Data, Indian women used to have total fertility rate (TFR) of around 6 in 1960 but the no. fell to 2.2 in 2018. As per National Health Survey-4, the wanted fertility in India is just 1.8% as against the actual fertility of 2.2 in 2020.
In a recent judgment also, following has been asserted by the centre in its affidavit before Supreme Court of India:
“The family welfare programme in India is voluntary in nature which enables couples to decide the size of their family and of the family planning methods, best suited to them…In fact, international experience shows that any coercion to have a certain number of children is counter-productive and leads to demographic distortions”
The rate of Population growth is falling itself as people are becoming more and more educated. In such situation implementing a bill like this will be very detrimental to society. There may be some unwanted pregnancy and in cases of this instead of giving them help to support their child imposing all this proposed provision is not just. The parsons having more than two children should not be treated as a criminal, there are many factors responsible for unwanted pregnancies and some are of such nature that cannot be avoided. Instead of doing this, the Government should try to provide contraceptive methods to all and educate all people about the benefit of having fewer children.
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