When we grew up in an India of less resources we fought for
more and more for ourselves. The age was characterized by have nots and an
amazing string of shortages. I have heard stories (probably not apocryphal) about
7 year waitlists for cars. I know for sure that when my dad came to Mumbai from
Dubai, he bought the Bajaj Chetak scooter and got it immediately by paying in
foreign currency. I think it was almost exclusively available in foreign currency.
A lower end brand was available if you paid local currency.
Like idiots we fought and discussed all the issues that lay
before us. Corruption, economics and everything else. The big cause as we and
almost everyone saw it was a Malthusian curse of over population. It was only
natural to think so. When you have less to go around, you think the best
solution was to have less demand to start with. Everything boiled down to
lowering population. Having less children was patriotic. First I remember the
family planning programs having this slogan – hum do humare do. (we two ours
two), alluding to one couple having two kids.
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I remember noticing when the not so subtle shift happened to
the program showing one couple and the male child simply removed from the
posters. It was one couple with one girl.
All of us looked forward to the China model where they
strictly enforced a one child policy to curb the effects of population growth
and enough and more statistics emerged which showed that while being larger for
now China will soon be eclipsed by India as the most populous country the
world. We would have the ignominious reputation by, I remember, something like
2035! Wow that was a scary statistic. If you thought there wasn’t enough, here –
have even less. Compete with more people. Eat less food. Wear less clothes. It was
crazy.
I am suddenly reminded of these arguments as on Independence
Day I was at the club where there was a bit of flag hoisting and celebration. The
chairman or someone got up to make a short speech and he highlighted the population
problem. He obviously was from the 60’s. I sniggered to my wife that he definitely
hasn’t heard about the demographic dividend. China with its one child policy
has another weird set of issues. You have older population that now has a much
smaller younger population to support
it. India seems to have a, what they now term as, demographic dividend. A larger
younger population earning money for a smaller older population. Some even
split India into four zones and talk about how the demographic dividend has
already been witnessed in the west and south while the north and east are now
poised for reaping the benefits while a host of factors need to be considered.
So it’s a bit of a U turn that we see. Similarly such views
are also seen in immigrants. At first cities flourish thanks to the waves of
immigrants that come in and then we suddenly hate them with the right wing
stroking fears of ‘them’ overpowering ‘us’. Then we want to throw them out.
Then different statistics come out explaining how the immigrants that come in
are the best brains from around the world and that if we shut them out our own
innovations die out and we as a city we will die. Today India’s (arguably) two
richest cities – Mumbai and Delhi are completely immigrant led. You would
struggle to find anyone in these two cities who could trace their ancestry for
greater than two generations. I haven’t found any son of the soil in Mumbai at
least, nor known of anyone like this in Delhi.
Such u turns are common and thanks to the amount of reading I
do –I am reconciled to them. In fact the law of unexpected consequences shows
up almost in everything. In a lot of my life I have seen myself turning around
and questioning my own beliefs. There are two sides to the coin. These days I have
been far less opinionated on a lot of issues. I have spoken of this in my
earlier blogs as well. This has also led to me blogging a lot less. If you have
fewer opinions to talk about you obviously are going to talk less. Unless of course
you have this space and time to rant on both sides. It becomes difficult to talk
to start with.
You can hear about a bit of it the demographic dividend and
other stuff at this talk.
And here is the link to why population growth is required –
In fact I never would have imagined seeing a story title
like this - ‘Low Birth Rates: Causes, Consequences, and Remedies.’ Remedy for
LOW BIRTH RATES? I thought that was the cure. Oh man… how little we know. How
little.
