Sample Materials of SSC CGL (Tier -3) Study Kit

Subject: Essay

Topic: Population of India

Nargis was born on October 31, 2011. The date was a landmark for India, for Nargis was not just another girl child but, officially, the 7 billionth member of the world. Ac­cording to demographic projections, India’s population may very soon overtake China’s in numbers to gain the distinction perhaps, a dubious one-of being the country with the largest population in the world. Critics view the prospect of such a large population with horror. India’s population is not just large but it is marked by a diversity not found elsewhere. At least six major religions of the world, besides other sects, have its followers in the country. Over the last several thousand years, Indian ethnic diversity has assumed such a complex intermingled state that it is almost impossible to differentiate various racial strains. The people speak a multiplicity of languages, and each one has a rich cultural history, literature and tradition of its own. This linguistic diversity poses the problem of how to provide education at the primary level and how to develop a national consensus on a link language for the entire country. It also makes it a challenging task to provide information on family planning to every section of the population.

Beyond all these differences, India also shows large economic diversity-in income shares, poverty levels, regional resources. India has three distinct faces-the reason­ably well-off middle and upper middle class constituting about 20 per cent of the population; what could be called the lower middle class, people who have received some of the benefits of growth since independence and manage a level of living, if not comfortable, at least not desperate; the bottom 30 per cent or so of the population which lives in considerable poverty. The economic disparities inevita­bly being compounded by disparities in education and literacy problems in accelerating social development arise in many regions.

Population –The trends in India

• Growing India: India is the world’s second most populous country and is expected to be the most populous by 2040.The country is undergoing the same forces of demographic transition that have been experienced elsewhere, only delayed by few decades.

• Young India: Over 700 million Indians are below 35 years of age and over 550 million are below 25.However despite its youthful population, India’s size means that it is home to the second largest number of older people in the world, in absolute terms.

• Unequal India: The rising income gap is creating an urban-rural divide and a north-south imbalance. A quarter of India’s population lives below the poverty line with most living off the land on small farms with little access to new technology.

• Urbanizing India: Almost 70% of Indians still reside in rural areas although in recent decades migration to larger cities has led to a dramatic increase in the country’s urban population.

• Mega city India: India is home to around 18% of the world’s population but accounts for only 2.42% of the total world area; the emergence of mega cities is inevitable.

• Aspirational India: The emerging middle class will surge tenfold; exceeding 500 million by 2025.It will command 60% of the country’s spending power.

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There is little doubt that the levels of growth in India’s population put all kind of pressure on the economy. The material quality of life of the vast masses suffers. There may be a steady growth in GDP, but at least a third of that is neutralised by population growth. The net increase in the general quality of life is modest and given the skewed distribution of the benefits of development, the hard core poor are practically left out of it. The problem is not quite Malthusian, though the spectre of Malthus does raise its head every now and then when some region suffers from hunger, malnutrition and even famine. The impact of overpopulation is also felt in areas other than food produc­tion. And the diversity of India’s population makes the problem of overpopulation all the more complex, as it is difficult to formulate a policy on demography in the circumstances.

One obvious economic implication of population growth is the growing need of foodgrains. While India has quite disproved the arguments in the international for a of the 1970s that the country could not be saved from large scale famines and resultant deaths, the problem of feeding the millions remains. Can India cope with the kind of figures projected by demographers? All available data suggest that the average Indian yields are among the lowest in the world. There are regions-the Indo-Gangetic plains, for example­ which could be made to yield millions of tonnes more of foodgrains than they do at present. The amount, according to experts, would easily meet the needs of the projected population levels. If technology and inputs improve, the potential could well increase. So, even if there are occa­sional food shortages due to erratic monsoons and so on, India’s ability for feeding its population does not seem unrealisable. The very fact that agricultural demand and growth will inevitably increase draws attention to the next problem- that of environmental degradation. Agricultural development on a large scale, with its attendant use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, water logging and other forms of soil degradation, is bound to create environmental problems. The pressure of population, especially in the Himalayan region, has led to destruction of forests. Dev­astating floods take their toll in the rich Gangetic plains and increasingly so.

There are other environmental problems created by overpopulation. The unplanned urbanisation with the con­comitant lack of adequate civic infrastructure has already wreaked havoc in many of our cities and towns. Much of this growth has been in the form of slums and shanty towns harbouring ecological refugees and those squeezed off the land. The exploding cities could cause social tension and unrest, in turn affecting economic stability. Pollution from automobile emissions and industrial wastes has steadily, increased in the cities. Such environmental degradation, in its turn, adversely affects the people and causes health problems.

Poverty, it is said, is the greatest pollutant. It is marked by an apathy that erodes self-esteem and any willingness to live life to the fullest. It is also a major factor in the creation of a paradoxical situation: hunger and malnutrition amidst plentiful availability of food; the lack of purchasing power leading to starvation deaths. Poverty is accompanied by lack of health care and nutrition. And when these very basic needs are not met who cares about education, information and awareness?

The population of a country could easily be turned to advantage if it is highly skilled or trained so that it could be utilised in development. India can hardly boast of such a population. Given the monetary resources it has, it cannot quite meet the rendition of making its entire populace literate, leave wane highly skilled. Lack of resources, again, prevents good basic health facilities being provided to every person in the country. If the population were not so large, the resources could be made to meet the situation. The same holds true for other human needs such as housing.

Natural resources- especially water-are being depleted at an alarming rate because of increasing population. Most cities of India are facing acute water shortage; even under­ground water is being dangerously depleted. The likely population growth in India over the next several years will make it difficult to improve the quality of life of the people.

In the long run, even a large population, if educated properly and given the right skills, will only prove an asset to India. But in the short run, uncontrolled growth of population will have serious repercussions on the country’s economic development. It is a kind of vicious circle: with a large population, available resources are either too thinly spread to be of much use or they get concentrated and produce a skewed development; ‘trickle down’ of growth is a long and slow process, so improvement in the standard of living of the masses is excruciatingly slow; natural resources are strained to an almost irreparable level; all this leads to discontent and social tensions; economic growth slows down, so does development, and the people suffer.

It is necessary that India consciously plans to give a heavier emphasis on social and economic development even as a policy for stabilising the population level is put in place. Only then can the population he turned into an economic asset. India is facing an intense crisis of resources. There is fierce competition for the nation’s limited natural resources leading to quarrels between states, between communities and even families. Our land and water resources are being exploited to the hilt. The exploitation of mineral resources is threatening forests, nature reserves, and ecology. Seventy percent of the energy resources need to be imported putting constant pressure on us to export more or face currency devaluation. Over use of resources is contributing to natural disasters occurring more frequently and with greater devastation.

For many Indians, life is a big struggle just to put together the bare essentials for survival, and shortages of resources works most against the poor and underprivileged. Even as sections of India’s middle-class struggle with scarcities, it is the poor and vulnerable sections of society who suffer most. It is well known that the biggest curse to the lives of millions of Indians is poverty. Though the rural poor have always been a deprived lot, their urban counterparts are not an inch better off. Having migrated to towns and cities in search of better life, they now survive under the most appalling of living conditions, with scant regard to the basics of cleanliness and hygiene. Awareness of healthy living habits is woefully lacking, so that, though the mortality rate has fallen over the years, epidemics and killer diseases continue to claim lives that could easily be saved. Infant mortality and deaths related to childbirth are still disturbingly common all over India, with large sections of the female population and a fair section of the male yet to receive their first lessons in literacy. With illiteracy rampant among the impoverished majority of the country, it is not difficult to understand why the rich easily exploit the poor, and corruption seems to have become a way of life. Indian life presents a classic example of being trapped in a vicious circle of poverty, from which there appears to be no escape. Nevertheless, a close inspection of the nature of these ills and inequalities reveals a single root cause lying at the core of the great entangled mass of our national life: viz. Population.

Population is the only non-depleting resource and a parameter of a country’s development. In a country like India where the factors contributing to population growth far outweigh the factors for development, population is no longer a resource but a burden to society. India’s population policy has been guided by the perception that a growing population is a serious impediment to development efforts. The pressing need of the day is to at create ideal conditions for acceptance of the need for stabilizing the population and how it is an essential element of human welfare and development. The solution to this lie in spreading of education and enlightenment, and in the empowerment of women. Birth control programmes should also be integrated with medical and public health services to make them popular among the masses.

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