Term Paper on News Reportage of

Overpopulation as a Social Issue in India

Submitted to Prof. Srikanth Srinivas

Xavier Institute of Communication

Submitted by-:
Poorti Purohit
Roll no: 42
 Overpopulation in India
Abstract
The paper discusses the issue of overpopulation in India and its consequences through news
reportage. It will show how it originated, progressed and became an issue. The paper will discuss
various perspectives of media on the topic covering various aspects like poverty, unemployment,
lack of education and awareness, effect of population on growth and the economy and cultural
dimension of the subject- overpopulation.

Table of contents
1. Introduction
2. Progression
3. History of solutions
4. Conclusion
5. References

Introduction
Overpopulation refers to excess of people for the amount of resources available in a particular area.
India, the seventh largest country in the world has an area of 3,287,469 square kilometres. In terms
of population, India ranks second only to China with a demography of 1.3 billion people.
Interestingly, the third country in the list with 1/4 th of the population of India is the USA but is three
times larger than India in size. Since 1947 the population of India has almost grown four times from
nearly 330 million to about 1.35 billion

In 1901, about 77 people per square kilometre were counted. According to 2011 Census data India’s
population density is 325 with 382 persons per square kilometres which has risen to 404 people per
square kilometre by 2018 and global density is 51 people per square kilometre of land area.
Overpopulation is a grave social issue in India and is snowballing into a scenario where India will
surpass China by 2024, according to an East Asia Forum Report.

According to an article in International Policy Digest- “the consequences of population growth are a
problem that the whole world will soon face sooner or later. Drinking water, sewage treatment,
inadequate rainfall, rapid depletion of natural resources, extinction of many plant and animal
species due to deforestation and loss of eco-systems, increased level of life-threatening air and
water pollution, high infant and child mortality rate and hunger due to extreme poverty are some of
the results of over-population”.
Progression
With a population of 1,354,051,854 people, a lot of states in India such as Uttar Pradesh
(224,571,834) Orissa (46,000,000) and Chhattisgarh (30,700,000) exceed the population of countries
like Russian Federation (143,954,551), Canada (35,151,728) and Australia (24,899,74) respectively

During 1911-1920 the birth and death rate were virtually equal- about 48 births and 48 death per
1,000 population. Initially due to endemic diseases, periodic epidemics and famine kept the death
rate high. Later on due to advancement in medicine and technology death rate slowed down,
increasing the gap. Overpopulation didn’t become an issue until early 1947. The population of India
at the time was 547,949,809 which was 15.9% of the world’s population.

It was during 1947-1990s that India’s population had doubled. The problem started in 1947 and India
comprised 15.9% of the total population of the world. The following decades from 1951 to 1961 and
1961-1971 the population grew by 21. 5 and 24.8 percent, respectively. New irrigation projects,
refugee settlements and urban expansion was seen during this decade. Slight slowdown was
experienced from 1971-1981, some news reports say that the then Prime Minister Mrs. Indira
Gandhi’s declaration of a state of ‘emergency’ is responsible for it.

In terms of India, unwelcome immigrants and refugees have also contributed to the problem of
increasing population. Immigrant issue in Assam and Rohingya influx have increased the statistics of
population in the country. This excess of population has led to other problems of burden on natural
resources, unemployment, rise in poverty, increasing gap between rich and poor and further
migration of people.

Analysis:
Poverty
The correlation between poverty and overpopulation has always been a subject of debate.
Thomas Robert Malthus, an economist believed that high population causes poverty. On the
other hand few economists believe that high population is a result of overpopulation in the
country (www.dailypioneer.com).
Population of Uttar Pradesh is over 200 million and more than 60 million people in the state
are poor leading to slow progress in growth (as per a world bank report from May 2016)
On the other hand Maharashtra the second most populated state in India with 120.68
million people has a GDP of 27.96 Lakh Crores making it the richest state in India (as per an
article by Jagran Josh)
“57 billionaires control 70 percent of India’s wealth, this economic inequality leads to
poverty, lack of social security and bad living conditions.” - International Policy Digest
19/06/2017
Lack of education
An article by the Times of India says that India has a third of world’s illiterates, showing the
poor condition of education in the country. An article by the guardian said that most rural
areas in the country are targeted for sterilization camps but not for education. As a result, in many
areas of the country people keep on increasing the family in the hope of a male child resulting in no
family planning whatsoever. People don’t have enough knowledge about the protective and
preventive measures of pregnancy, which often leads to unwanted pregnancy or serious health
issues for women. A lot of rural population believe that more children would mean more earning
hands and less burden for the family, wherein most cases the family is not able to afford education
or basic needs. Lack of education or illiteracy is blamed for the high statistics of population in the
country.

An article in Hindustan Time addressed that- “While India’s fertility has declined to about half the
level of the late 1980s, that trajectory may not continue. In the past eight years, contraceptive
use fell by almost 35% as abortions and the use of emergency pills doubled. More specifically,
reliance on oral birth control pills, condoms, and vasectomies declined by 30%, 52%, and 73%,
respectively.“

Unemployment
According to a report by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) in February 2019, there
are around 31 million Indians seeking jobs. On the other hand a story says that 600,000 jobs were
created in the financial year 2017-2018 according to an article by the Business Standard.

A Financial Express report said that the proportion of economically active population in the country
has increased from 57.7 to 63.3 percent during 1991-2013 period

The Economic Survey 2016 said- “To exploit the demographic dividend and meet the growing aspiration
of those entering the labour force, India’s economy needs to create enough “good jobs”- jobs that are safe
and pay well, and encourage firms and workers to improve skills and productivity.”
Due to the state of population in the country, jobs and educational institutions face a lot of challenges to
recruit employees and students. Civil service examination (CSE) is considered to be the toughest
competitive examination in the country and the acceptance rate for an IAS officer is 0.001 percent which
means one out of a thousand aspirants make it to the merit list for IAS. Most aspirants then aim for
universities and jobs abroad for better opportunities.

Effect on growth
A country sees economic growth when there is a demand, productive uses of resources, healthy
atmosphere and safe environment. Julian Simoon, an economist believed that- Increase in
population is not a problem, increase in demand attracts investment to in-turn produce more.
“Technology often makes overpopulation problems worse. The conversion of small farms to large
cash-crop agribusiness farms and industrial complexes factories, for example, ends up displacing
thousands of people from the land that could be used to grow food that people could eat.” India is
currently the fastest growing economy in the world and Sanjeev Sanyal in his article in Economic
Times said that it’s going to have a high growth even in the coming years.

Antinatalism
People who feel concerned and responsible for the environment have now started
associating themselves as antinatalists, which means having children is immoral. In other
words, it is a philosophical position that assigns a negative value to birth. According to
articles in Hindu Business Line and The Scroll the growing concerns of people is due to the
burden on the environment. “Cities like Delhi and Bengaluru will run out of water in two years.
According to the Centre for Science and Environment, every third child in Delhi has irreversible lung
damage caused by pollution. Educational institutions are struggling to cope with the demand of an
ever-increasing number of students. Forest cover shrinks to make way for construction .”

The other side to this argument is ‘consent’, people think it’s unfair to give birth to someone who
has no choice in the matter and is forced to live with societal expectations and burden. People who
still want to be a parent adopt children to take responsibility for a good reason.

Solution:
Population a raging crisis in a diverse country like India has been looking for solutions to curb the population since
ages. Whether it’s taking inspiration from China for their one child policy to tax relaxation for two children per
family or long running family planning programme, the solutions have always been a debate.
In an interview with Mirror Now, famous Indian yogi Baba Ramdev has come out with a bizarre idea of taking
away voting rights of people who have more than 2 children, at the same time he suggested that bachelors like
him should be rewarded.

As per an article in the origins- “the government’s way to curb the population of the country was through an
‘integrated’ approach to family planning which encouraged sterilization and contraception through incentives
during April 1976 (When the then Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi had declared a state of “emergency”).
Media was censored during the time but reports of young men being forcefully dragged away from houses to
“vasectomy” camps had started surfacing. There were police violence against those who protested. A
“sterilization certificate” became a requirement for all kinds of important documents such as ration cards, land
papers, electricity connections etc.
Post the emergency period, media did lots of stories about the abuses people started rejecting the very idea of
government sponsored “family planning”.
“The Human Rights Watch cites sterilization as a major health concern for women in India. Female health workers
and childhood nutrition workers, called anganwadi  workers, were historically given financial incentives by the
Indian government to meet yearly sterilization quotas. Due to controversy, in 1996 India announced that it would
take a “target-free” approach to family planning, and while it has acted on this promise, state and local officials
continue to set sterilization targets. Health care workers who do not meet these quotas risk losing their jobs.
These targets lead to workers misinforming women about the health impacts of the decision to sterilize. Recent
programs have made an attempt to shift focus from numbers to quality and availability of care (Human Rights
Watch).”- Meredith McBride mentioned in her story on- human rights in India
Around 2012 National Population Plan came into existence with target-free approaches, collection of data
throughout the country, addressing issues such as contraceptives, health care infrastructure and reproductive
healthcare to have an economically sustainable population by 2045

Hindustan Times in an article mentioned an online campaign in 2017 among other various steps to control the
increasing population in the country. The campaign #bharat4populationlaw asked people to sign a petition
online. It started out with a group called ‘Taxpayers Association of Bharat’.

A Times of India report on February 21st 2018 said that a petition was filed in the Supreme Court by Delhi BJP
leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, seeking direction to the Centre to encourage the adoption of two-child policy.
The petition said that ‘two-child policy’ should be made a mandatory criteria to contest parliamentary, state
assembly or local body elections, forming a political party, becoming a government employee, applying for jobs at
judiciary and executive level and receiving government aids and subsidies.
Recently four petitions were filed in the apex court by advocates Anuj Saxena, Prathavi Raj Chauhan
and Priya Sharma. Another plea was filed by an activist Anupam Bajpai. These pleas addressed the
situation of the country where overpopulation is imposing an increasing burden on the limited
natural resources in the country along with creating problems like poverty, unemployment, illiteracy,
poor health, pollution and global warming.
Conclusion:
 If poverty is said to be the cause of overpopulation then why is it that to boost economic
growth 26,909 Kilometres of roads have been constructed out of which 20,064 Kilometres
belong to rural areas. These roads have helped in connecting rural areas to provide them
with access to economy and healthcare. For a very long time India has been a poor country
but according to an article in The Washington Post, a recent study by the World Poverty
Clock, only 5% of the total population of India living in extreme poverty and the statistic is
expected to decrease to 3% by 2021. Though at the same time there has been no significant
reduction in the population of the country.
 Times of India in a story mentioned that in May 2018 Nigeria surpassed India as the
country being home to the largest number of poor. The report also said that every
minute about 44 people come out of extreme poverty, which is one of the fastest
rates of poverty reduction in the country (the source of the data was not mentioned)
 In another story by Time of India titled “India is still poor, Modi government should
push more reforms. The article said that even though extreme poverty is decreasing
at a fast rate in India being number two among the poor nations is no consolidation.
There have been a lot of reforms and structural changes by the Modi government in
the past 4 years but in order to eradicate poverty from the country India’s growth
rate needs to be in double-digits. Ironically both the contradictory articles had
backlinks present on them, showing the contradiction in the reportage.
 According to the Census data, there are states in India with higher literacy and lower
poverty, at the same time there are states with lower literacy and lower poverty as
well. These statistics show that poverty cannot be the only factor for overpopulation.
 A story by Deccan Herald on 29th November 2019 said “According to the 2018 Asia-
Pacific Wealth Report (APWR) released by Capgemini on Wednesday, in Asia-Pacific, India
was the most fertile market for ultra-HNWI population (22.2%) and wealth (23.4%) growth.”
The story said that as of 2017 India ranks 11 th in the population of high-net-worth Individuals
(HNWI).
 Today, the fastest population growth is found in so-called failed states, where poverty is
worst. But it’s not clear that population growth is their central problem: With physical
security, better policies and greater investments in health and education, there is no reason
that fragile states could not enjoy sustained improvements in income” said Jeffrey Hays in a
Washington Post article.
 An article by the guardian said – “Teaching poorly educated women in remote communities
how to use pills or contraceptives is more expensive than the mass sterilisation campaigns,
and despite successive years of economic growth, governments have systematically chosen
the cheaper option.” It raises the question whether the government over the years has
failed in educating and making preventive policies for the country or avoided them
necessarily to gain votes.
 India’s major population is youth but there is high level of unemployment in the country.
Ironically, India is the fastest growing economy in the world right now. So If the rise in
population is to be blamed for unemployment, lack of policies and employment
opportunities by the government should also be questioned.
Overpopulation in India can be seen as two sides of the same coin, if used in a productive and
efficient manner the human resource of the country can help in the growth of the nation and
contribute to nation building. That does not mean government should not try to impose policies
to make people aware and educated about family planning.

The major questions that arise from this are

if India producing too many people or too few resources? Does a growing population represent
an opportunity or a danger?

-x-
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