RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat calls for 3-child norm to avoid decline in population

Bhagwat went on to say, “We count the family as a vital unit that makes up a society. The culture and values are inherited and passed from one generation to another, thus preserving the core systems and values that are timeless and relevant not just to Indians but also globally.”

Bhagwat was referring to the total fertility rate (TFR), or the number of babies an average woman aged 15-49 bears over her lifetime. Between 1992-93 and 2019-21, India’s TFR came down from 3.4 to 2, with the fall especially significant in rural areas. A TFR of 2.1 is considered “replacement-level fertility”. That means a woman having two children replaces herself and her partner with two new lives. Since all infants may not survive to realise their reproductive potential, the replacement TFR is taken at slightly above two. It ensures that each generation replaces itself. Populations can keep growing even with TFRs falling, with an absolute decline requiring TFRs to remain below replacement levels for extended periods.

In his Vijayadashami speech in 2022, Bhagwat had called for a comprehensive population control policy, saying it should apply to all equally and once put in motion “no one should get any concessions”. He added, “When there was (population) imbalance 50-odd years ago, we suffered serious consequences. It hasn’t just happened to us. In today’s time, new countries such as East Timor, South Sudan and Kosovo were created. So, when there is a population imbalance, new countries are created. Countries are divided.”

His latest comments come at a time when the Chief Ministers from the South have expressed concern about the ageing population in their states. In October, Andhra CM N Chandrababu Naidu, whose party is an ally of BJP-led NDA, urged people in his state to have more children and said, “We are thinking of providing incentives to families with more children, encouraging couples to have more children.” His government also scrapped the two-child rule for contesting local body elections in the state. Telangana is now likely to follow suit.

A day after Naidu’s remarks, his Tamil Nadu counterpart M K Stalin of DMK said in jest how blessings for newlyweds had changed over time and went on to refer to an old Tamil saying that enumerated 16 forms of wealth, ranging from cows and land to children and education. Referring next to a potential effect that lower population growth might have on delimitation, likely to be carried out in 2026, Stalin joked: “Why not aim for 16 children?”

One of the concerns of several leaders from the South is that the process of delimitation, or redrawing electoral boundaries, based on population will adversely affect them since they have successfully controlled population growth and will instead help the BJP, which wins most of its seats in north India.

RSS-linked weekly Organiser too has echoed the concern about how lower birth rates may place western and southern states at a “disadvantage” during delimitation. The magazine’s editor, Prafulla Ketkar, wrote in an editorial in July, “Regional imbalance is another critical dimension that will impact the delimitation process of the Parliamentary Constituencies in the future. The States from the West and South are doing relatively better regarding population control measures and, therefore, fear losing a few seats in Parliament if the base population is changed after the census.”

Ketkar argued that the country needs a policy to ensure that population growth does not disproportionately impact any religious community or region, which, he says, “can lead to socio-economic disparities and political conflicts”. This was a rare instance of an RSS affiliate linking the population growth argument to delimitation.