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The final draft of the two-child policy bill was submitted to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in mid-August.
Ritesh Shukla / Getty Images
India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, has introduced a bill to implement a two-child policy, a move quickly labeled by population and public health experts as discriminatory and coercive .
The proposed legislation rides a wave of disincentives, such as excluding people with more than two children from government jobs, subsidies, social assistance programs, and participating in local elections.
A group of 139 public health experts, rights activists, women’s organizations, academics and concerned individuals have written to President Ram Nath Kovind calling for the bill to be withdrawn and calling it a violation of reproductive health and rights, which are considered basic human rights of women.
The final draft of the bill was submitted in mid-August to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu monk who vehemently supported it. A population explosion can create obstacles to the development of the state and the country. Countries and states that have made efforts in this direction have seen positive results. However, more efforts are needed in this regard, he said.
The bill proposes a green card for couples with two children, but it goes further by granting a golden card, with additional benefits, to couples with only one child. The Hindu nationalist organization Vishva Hindu Paris was quick to criticize this incitement, citing the failure and disastrous consequences of China’s one-child policy.
Indians are still marked by memories of the forced sterilization program started in the 1970s by then Prime Minister’s son Indira Gandhis, Sanjay, in the midst of a period of martial law known as the Emergency. . Sanjay Gandhi had never been elected and had not held any official position in government, but that did not prevent him from ordering the sterilization of millions of men from poor communities. Several botched sterilization programs since then have also claimed lives.
Experts say that while population control is welcome Uttar Pradesh is home to some 240 million people, with a population density more than double the national average, the bill targets marginalized communities; is unnecessary, because the population of India is stabilizing; and the country is still grappling with a bigger health crisis.
This will disproportionately affect the poorest and most vulnerable, as they are the most dependent on rations, subsidies and government programs. With COVID-19 already exacerbating inequalities, actions such as those proposed in the bill will only put women and children at risk, said Poonam Muttreja, executive director of the Population Foundation of India.
The value of such coercive measures is also questionable. There are currently eight Indian states with an active, albeit less draconian, two-child policy, including Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, Ms. Muttreja noted. Policies or measures relating to the two-child standard have not been independently evaluated in any state and their effectiveness has never been demonstrated. A five-state study by Nirmala Buch, a former senior executive in India’s Administrative Service, found that in states that adopted a two-child policy, there was an increase in sex-selective and unsafe abortions, men divorced their wives to run in local elections, and families gave children up for adoption to avoid disqualification.
The government of Uttar Pradesh has argued that the main factor behind the bill is the state’s burgeoning population, whose per capita income is half the national average. According to the National Family Health Survey, the state has a total fertility rate of 2.7 children per woman, compared to a national average that has steadily declined over the course of a generation to just 2, 2.
India’s fertility rate has been falling by 2% per year for 20 years, said KS James, director and senior professor at the International Institute of Population Sciences in Mumbai. In our experience, what works is a three-pronged strategy to control the population seen in states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu: social development, empowerment of women and a focus on service delivery. family planning.
To this end, it is essential that governments prioritize incentives over disincentives. Past experience has shown time and again that coercive population policies in patriarchal societies like ours tend to target women from the poorest and most vulnerable and marginalized segments of society. As the pressure to produce a male child by her husband and in-laws continues, so does limiting the birth of children to two, said Mira Shiva, Delhi women’s health expert and director. of the Initiative for Health and Equity in Society.
The question that needs to be asked is whether the state would ensure the survival of the two children, given the erosion of the determinants of health, food and nutrition security, access to affordable health care and non-exploitable, said Dr Shiva.
Advancing girls’ education, access to contraceptives, preventing child marriage and focusing on general health and development are much more effective policy measures to reduce fertility and stabilize the population, said Ms. Muttreja.
The proposed two-child policy has also raised suspicions that it is a political ploy ahead of state elections in six months. This is a totally bogus political movement with the aim of creating a wedge between Hindus and Muslims, advancing the story that Muslims will overtake Hindus and take political power. This is hardly the time when a demographic policy is needed. Its come when this state government has already been in power for 4.5 years and is at the end of its mandate. The reasons are therefore suspect. This is just to start the debate that Hindus are in danger, said SY Quraishi, author of The Population Myth: Islam, Family Planning and Politics in India and former chief electoral commissioner.
India has had a national population policy since 2000, he said. Twenty-four of the country’s 28 states have already achieved the replacement fertility rate of 2.1, the remaining states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are expected to meet this target by 2025.
What would help is meeting the need for family planning in Uttar Pradesh. Ms. Muttreja calls for more investment in access to these services and expanding the basket of contraceptive choices, especially long-acting reversible contraceptives, which are critical given the states’ predominantly young population.
Providing better access and better quality health care for young people will not only lead to improved health, but will also visibly improve educational outcomes, increase productivity and participation in the workforce, which will lead to in turn increased household income and economic growth for the country, she said.
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