Population - a symbol of power

Nowadays, it is a fashion to indicate or symbolize population with poverty, but I think this is oversimplification. If this was true, the most populated country China would have been very poor and the least populated countries of Africa with their vast natural resources would have been rich.

If we talk about a country like India, which has a democratic type of government, yes the number counts and a group having largest population surely achieves success. Some people would like to argue that quality and not the quantity is the real power, but in any social or political setups no one can ignore the force of big numbers.

Population - A curse

Now lets look at this issue from other way round which is that population is strength only when you have the power to feed the people, employ the people, and house them. If you do not have that power, population is not merely a minor irritant rather it is a major problem. If you don’t have the capability to feed a single person, then one is too much. Similarly, the African countries may have a smaller population than India, but even that population is too much for them because they are not able to handle them.

Yes, I agree that population is a big curse to a nation, just think if India had 20 crore people less everything would have been changed. There would have been sufficient jobs for people. No deaths due to poverty and hunger, as all the resources would have been utilized efficiently and consumed appropriately.

For a human to live happily, we need water, food, clothing, fuel, minerals and many more things.

Take an example of Ahmedabad in India. I know about tons of people having 3 to 4 kids over there. Both the parents join together and are barely able to make Rs 5000 per month and after feeding and clothing 3 to 4 kids and themselves, they have NOTHING left. They are not consumer of anything, except food and cloth. They cannot even put the kids in a good English or convent school and all of them go to municipality school, where they learn. What? Nothing.

Yes I agree that the well-educated people in India have accepted family planning norms and most of them are going for 1 or at max two children. The problem is with the uneducated class who still are giving birth on an average to 4 to 6 children. They are completely unaware of the functioning of the female menstrual cycle and at some places, they even consider children as gifts from God.

So the fact we need to consider is not what the large population of India has done till date; but what kind of population are we growing now.

What do you think about China and Japan’s one-child policy?

When I asked this question to one of my friend, he said, “See how disastrous is one-child policy. Your grandparent’s generation has 100 people, your parent's generation 50 and your just 25. Thus when your parents and grandparents grow old, just 25 youth people's work and income will be required to look after the older 150 people of your parent and grandparent's generation. Japan will cease to be a power, leave alone a global power for this reason, although in Japan, the cause was low birth rate. In West, immigration has arrested the disaster temporarily. Japan does not allow much immigration and could not handle the situation. Now China will soon face the music! Diminishing population scenario like China and Japan due to low birth rate will adversely affect growth and have devastating consequences on GDP due to diminishing labour force! Till date, which European country faced this "hypothetical problem"?”

But I said that “all countries with high population growth rate are facing dire economic problem. China adopted one child policy so that parents could give more time to raise, educate and train the child. As a result, Chinese children are far, far better nourished and educated than Indian kids. Around 50% of Indian kids are malnourished. Some 25% kids have faced malnutrition to the extent that their IQ has reduced by 5 points. By 2020, China will be way ahead of us in terms of human capital. It is another matter that China will implode due to rising corruption in their police, courts, etc. and will become another USSR. And as population will decrease, the average age will increase and health will also improve, so people will keep working until much older age. Further, even at elder age, people can do light and clerical, etc. work, so labor force will not decline that drastically, so if you count number of *disabled* person a working person will be supporting, that remains the same.”

India has more than 114 crore people now. It is TOO MUCH given the low amount fuel and water in India. If we keep growing at 1.5% a year, we will never be able to provide quality education to all kids in India.

Take a census. The families having 1 to 2 kids give better education to kids than families having more than two kids in the same income level.

You can also do a simple math.

English medium schools are almost twice as expensive as local language medium, so if husband and wife earn Rs 15000/month, then they can provide English or convent school to ONLY one or two kids. If they have more than two kids, they will go to vernacular language schools and will be jobless when they get out.

So after taking all the above points in consideration, I think that large population can become a blessing for a nation when we could mould this large population to some important and profitable resource to become a profitable asset for the country. What I mean by moulding is to provide them some good jobs. If you take and example of country like India and look at Indian GDP, service sector is the only sector, which is showing a continuous double digit growth and is a major contributor to Indian GNP and this sector does not require much resources other than Human Capital, just the managers need more leadership skills to motivate and provide them proper direction.

But if you are not able to mould this large population in good assets as I described above, all this turns into a curse.