Health Minister says no to BJP MP’s Bill on population control: Awareness, not force

Mandaviya listed the impact of family planning programmes across various indicators, including a reduction in Total Fertility Rate (TFR) — the average number of children per woman — to 2.0 at the national level. He quoted statistics from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-V and Census data among others to establish that the rate of population growth has been consistently decreasing.

“When we talk about NFHS and look at the Census, we can see the success we have achieved. In 1971, the average annual exponential growth was 2.20; 2.14 in 1991; 1.97 in 2001; and 1.64 in 2011. It shows population growth has declined, and has been declining. The rate of growth seen between the ’60s and ’80s has come down significantly. It is a good sign. The total fertility rate has dropped to 2.0 in NFHS-V,” he said.

Mandaviya also highlighted the drop in teenage birth rate and teenage marriage to 6.8 per cent and 23.3 per cent respectively. “This indicates that government policies on population control without using force, or making it compulsory, and through awareness are working… I request him (Sinha), we are trying to work towards meeting your objectives so that all classes, communities get the best opportunities to develop. I request you to withdraw the Bill,” he said.

Withdrawing his Bill, Sinha expressed confidence that “we will be able to control our population, rising above caste, religion, language and district”, on account of serious efforts being undertaken by the government in this regard. “Our (government’s) efforts are being undertaken in a constitutional manner. We do not want to repeat the Emergency,” he said.

Sinha said while he didn’t use the words Hindu or Muslim in his Bill, one should not hesitate to use “facts” while discussing an issue. “Using the words Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Parsi don’t make it unconstitutional,” he said. “Between 1901 and 2011, Hindu population has reduced by 13.8 per cent, while Muslim population has increased by 9.8 per cent. This is a fact. I don’t want to comment on whether this increase is good or bad, but you can’t turn away from facts,” he said.

BJP members K J Alphons, Vijay Pal Singh Tomar and Harshvardhan Singh Dungarpur, who spoke before Mandaviya, supported the Bill as they questioned the purported population growth rate of a particular community.

Opposing the Bill, Congress MP Jairam Ramesh said the country has reached replacement level fertility. “After two generations, population will remain stable or begin to decline. Rakesh Sinha’s Bill is based on a completely flawed assumption. Barring the most unfortunate period of Emergency, India’s family planning has been based on democratic means,” he said.

Ramesh said the Parliament also needs to debate how not to penalise the southern and western states that are success stories in family planning. The issue has political implications in the light of another possible round of delimitation, he said.

TMC MP Jawhar Sircar, who also opposed the Bill, said education of girls and women was the time-tested “magic pill” that could help in population control. He also advised against deploying state force. “Never empower a bureaucracy with vague powers, they are likely to be misused much more than you think,” said Sircar, a retired IAS officer.