Political leaders and Hindu religious leaders, have been appealing to the public at large to produce more children, which is a great cause for concern.
The likes of Sakshi Maharaj and Sadhvi Rithambara, apart from leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and other similar organisations, have been appealing to Hindus to produce more children. Ironically, many of those making such appeals have preferred to remain single.
The Hindu religious leaders want Hindu women to produce more children to maintain a huge gap between the size of the Hindu and the Muslim population. In a country where a majority of the people have said goodbye to facts, logic and logical analysis of facts, it is easy to make the population believe even the wildest of lies.
One such lie that is being spread is that the Muslims will outgrow the Hindus in India in the coming years, with some reports claiming that this would happen by 2050. That claim is a misinterpretation or deliberate misrepresentation of a report by an international agency, which has stated that India will have the highest population of Muslims in the world. Which in simple terms means there will be more Muslims in India, than in any other country.
For the Muslims to surpass the Hindus in India, by natural population growth by the current rate of growth of the two communities, it will take centuries. Research has shown that a majority couples with higher educational qualifications, tend to have less children. In that case, emphasis should be on ensuring that people have easy access to education that is affordable to all, rather than the current prohibitive cost, making it less accessible to many. Affordable higher education is a farfetched dream in the country, where government-run (public) schools are being closed down in states like Maharashtra and education is going to the private sector at an increased rate, where profit is the only motive.
Those who tend to believe that there is a need to increase the Hindu population in the country, often overlook that the rate of unemployment in the country has increased and for many the income has dropped in terms of purchasing power. In this backdrop, it has become difficult for even middle class families to take care of the monthly budget, not to speak of those with lesser income or those below the poverty line.
Saner minds are required among the Hindus or the Muslims, to get the followers of their religion to think in terms of what is good for the country and for them at the micro level, rather than what is good for the size of their religion. The practitioners of the two religions need to be told that the greatness of a religion is not in its size or its festivals, but in the way it helps individuals increase their spirituality on one hand and their ability to do good to others, even if they follow another religion.
A survey published by US News, in September this year, ranks India at number four in list of most religious countries in the world. The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia rank low in the list, with Switzerland at the second last position. However, the same survey points out that Switzerland as the best country in the world in terms of perception of safety and its low level of corruption, apart from other factors. The ranking of the other countries is also inversely proportional to its religious ranking.
Two chief ministers, Chandrababu Naidu of Andhra Pradesh and M K Stalin of Tamil Nadu, have now joined the religious leaders in appealing to the people in their respective states to increase the population of their respective states. Their reason, however, is political and not religious. The two leaders want the size of the population to be more, to get more representation in the parliament, which is decided by the size of the population of the state.
The number of seats is decided in every state and the demarcation of the boundaries of the constituencies is done by the high-powered Delimitation Commission of India, whose decision cannot be challenged in a court.
States like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Bihar have a larger chunk of seats than the Southern states, given the size of the population based on the last census carried out in 2011. After the carving out of Telangana out of Andhra Pradesh, the number of Lok Sabha seats in the latter dropped from 42 to 25. Tamil Nadu has 39 seats, whereas Uttar Pradesh has 80.
The two leaders may be justified in expecting more representation in the Lok Sabha, when the development of the nation is now controlled by the numbers game, due to narrow thinking of political leaders, who are more concerned about the growth of their respective parties, rather than that of the states, especially, where their party is not in power.
The present norms of delimitation are unfair to states which have less population, but have performed better in terms of development of the state and its people. States showing better social and economic parameters do not get rewarded for their achievements, in terms of number of seats in the parliament.
There is a need for a rethink on delimitation. Instead of merely looking at the size of the population and the geography of the region, consideration should be given parameters like child mortality, health index, employment level, percentage of the population completing higher education, safety of women, overall of safety of the population, taking into consideration the safety of the Dalit, the lower castes and minorities. This will not be a violation of universal suffrage, guaranteed by the Constitution.
There should be weightage for each of these parameters and the number of seats for each state should be allotted on that basis. This will not only bring about fairness, but will also encourage parties in power to perform better.
The author is a senior journalist and media trainer. He tweets at @a_mokashi
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