History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c96.s2.69
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c96.s2.69
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This table shows that the birth rate in our country is not very high or abnormal and the death rate is also similar to that of such progressive countries as France and U. K. Many Western countries have no definite population policy at Govt. level. But the case of our country is entirely different. Our country has already a huge population, most of which is on the margin of subsistence level. Supposing that by means of our two Five Year Plans the national income in the ten years (1951-1961) increased 30 percent, the growth of population in the same period would come to about 22 percent, so that most of the additional wealth produced would be eaten up by the new mouths that have to be fed and the standard of living of the average Indian would practically remain the same. Therefore, the main problem that faces the Government, the planners and the people is how to control the large growth of population. Population control will not solve all the problems of our country, but our other problems will not be solved without solving that problem. The Government of India and the Planners had no well thought policy about the control of population. Government appears to lay far more emphasis on industrialization and agricultural production than on population control. In the first Five Year Plan only 65 lakhs of rupees were allocated to the schemes of population control, in the 2nd Five Year Plan the allocation was raised to five crores.
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The Planning Commission has now realized the gravity of the problem of the enormous growth of Indian population, has provided 50 crores of rupees in the Third Plan for the various schemes of population control (vide pp 676 ff of Third Five Year Plan). In the whole world about 100 people are born every minute, about 6000 persons every hour, about 140,000 every day and about five crores every year. This problem of the phenomenal growth of population overshadows in urgency and importance almost every problem of the contemporary world, much more so of India. Very little is being done to control systematically the terrific growth of numbers. Sweden in the early 19th century was a poverty-stricken country, but now it is one of the progressive and prosperous countries of the world owing to hard work, co-operation, honesty, social and personal discipline. Birth control is a very difficult and delicate problem. Religious beliefs and prejudices have to be taken into consideration. In Ṛgvedic times the prayer to God Indra for a newly married bride had been 'O bountiful Indra! may ten sons be born of her and make her husband the eleventh (member of the family).' Later on some kindly soul took compassion on women and made the blessing to be ‘of eight sons’. The Mahābhārata said that a sonless man does not reach blessed worlds (heaven &c).
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By the birth of a son the father was deemed to have discharged his debt to his ancestors and the water and pindas (balls of cooked rice) offered by the son to his deceased father and other deceased ancestors were supposed to be of great efficacy for the peace of the departed souls. Vide H. of Dh. Vol. II pp. 560-61, 799 and above p. 1626 This importance of a son or sons is believed to this day by almost all illiterate or educated people in India except a few men and women of advanced views Educated brides sometimes request that the old mode of blessing for eight sons should not be followed. Therefore, in such cases the formula has to be changed to ‘may you have as many sons as you desire’. The Smṛtis lay down that the husband has to cohabit with the wife after the first few days of her monthly illness and that he incurred the sin of embryo murder if he refused to do so without good cause. Vide H. of Dh. Vol. II pp. 570-71 and note 1327. The Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa (Chap 14. 5-6) goes a little further and gives a story in which the husband who neglected this owing to his partiality for another charming wife had to undergo torments of hell. The present high prices of the necessaries of life induce many people to limit families by various devices.
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The Planning Commission is going to try various measures such as intensive education, provision of facilities and advice on the largest scale possible, providing family planning services at 1864 rural and 330 urban medical and health centres, numbers of sterilization centres, opening 6100 clinics in rural areas and 2100 in urban areas (in 2nd Plan only 549 urban and 1100 rural clinics), distribution of simple contraceptives, research programme for more effective contraceptives etc. The 3rd Plan reports that in the 2nd Plan period 125000 sterilization operations were carried out (p. 678 of Third Plan). The present author is not an expert in these matters and so will content himself by pointing out that sterilization and, particularly contraceptives, are double-edged weapons. Sterilization for males is easy and may become popular among well-to-do men for selfish reasons (such as not wanting children and not undertaking the task of bringing them up). Therefore, a rule would have to be made and rigorously enforced that no sterilization will be done unless the man has three children or more. Vide a very thoughtful work ‘Fertility and Survival’ by Alfred Sauvy tr. from French by Christine Brooke-Rose (1961). Birth control is practised in West Europe, North America, Japan exclusively by the well-to-do type of people. The same might happen in India. The most serious objection against contraceptives is that they will lead to immorality and encourage promiscuity in both sexes.
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Gandhiji in his ‘Self-restraint versus self-indulgence’ (3rd. ed., 1928) stated that so far as India is concerned there is no case for contraceptives (p. 3) and advised self-restraint. But he might have changed his opinion if he had been alive today. To advise poor people to practise self restraint, when most of them live in hovels of one room or two rooms, who are uneducated and have no ambitions and pass life in abject poverty, sounds to them as a huge joke. The well-to-do have many interests in life and several outlets for their energy but for the poor there are very few. It is interesting to note that the Prime Minister in his ‘Autobiography’ (1936) strongly criticizes Gandhiji’s praise of poverty, suffering and ascetic life as utterly wrong, harmful and impossible of achievement (p 510) and regards Gandhiji's attitude to sex as extraordinary (p. 512).