Population Policies and the Two-Child Norm: A Note
Mohan Rao
On the 30th of July 2003, a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court of India upheld a
Haryana Government law prohibiting a person from contesting or holding the post of a
sarpanch or panch in the Panchayat Raj Institutions of the state if he or she had more
than two children. The Bench observed that “disqualification on the right to contest an
election for having more than two living children does not contravene any fundamental
right, nor does it cross the limits of reasonability. Rather, it is a disqualification
conceptually devised in the national interest” (Venkatesan: 2003).
Interestingly, while the Supreme Court spoke about the “torrential increase of
population”, earlier the Rajasthan High Court judges, hearing a similar set of petitions,
in their ruling argued: “These provisions have been enacted by the legislature to control
the menace of population explosion… The government is spending large sums of
money propagating family planning. One of the agencies to which the project of family
planning has been entrusted for implementation is the gram panchayat. The panches
and sarpanches are to set the example and maintain the norm of two children.
Otherwise what examples can they set before the public?” (Sarkar and Ramanathan
2002:42). More recently the Supreme Court added salt to festering wounds by issuing
notices to the Centre and states on the implementation of the two-child norm, stepping,
once again, on not-too-sensitive legislative toes.
Haryana is not the only state that has a population policy with such features, which are
not only at variance with the National Population Policy 2000 but also strike at the
heart of the commitments to reproductive health and rights made by the Government at
the ICPD. Other states, such as Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan,
Chattisgarh and Orissa also carry this policy prescription. All of these states, in
enunciating their population policies, also advocate a mind-boggling host of incentives
and disincentives: restricting schooling in government schools to two children;
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restricting employment in public services to those with two children; linking financial
assistance to PRIs for development activities and anti-poverty programmes with
performance in family planning; linking assessment of public health staff to
performance in family planning and so forth. Indeed, service rules for government
employees have been altered in several states making a two-child norm mandatory.
Perhaps not coincidentally, many of these policy prescriptions were also contained in
an influential 1993 World Bank document. This recommends, ICPD notwithstanding,
that “targets based on micro-level planning be…continued”; “an innovative package of
incentives/disincentives … be linked to various benefits being made available under
different plans of the government”; “ a suitable plan of disincentives…for government
employees…and the organized sector” (World Bank 1993: 50-51). Given the reach and
influence of the World Bank in India’s policies, it is not surprising that state
governments drafting their state population policies carried these policy prescriptions.
In view of these developments, health and women’s groups approached the National
Human Rights Commission three years back with a memorandum that the two-child
norm was discriminatory, anti-democratic and violative of commitments made by the
Government of India in several international covenants. The NHRC issued orders to the
concerned State governments, and, at a National Colloquium on the 9th and 10th of
January 2003, attended by representatives of these State governments, a Declaration
was issued.
This NHRC Declaration, “notes with concern that population policies framed by some
State Governments reflect in certain respects a coercive approach through use of
incentives and disincentives, which in some cases are violative of human rights. This is
not consistent with the spirit of the National Population Policy. The violation of human
rights affects, in particular the marginalized and vulnerable sections of society,
including women” (NHRC 2003:1). The Declaration also noted: “ further that the
propagation of a two-child norm and coercion or manipulation of individual fertility
decisions through the use of incentives and disincentives violate the principle of
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voluntary informed choice and the human rights of the people, particularly the rights of
the child” (Ibid).
But the NHRC Declaration, as much as the concerns of health groups and women’s
groups, apparently fell on deaf ears, as the Supreme Court ruling has come in for
widespread middle-class approbation. Indeed, the Supreme Court ruling perhaps
renders redundant some of the private members bills in Parliament that have been
tabled to variously increase incentives or disincentives. Two of them, one named the
Population Stabilisation Bill 1999, and the other, the Population Control Bill 2000, for
instance, moot the idea of a one-child norm along with a number of incentives and
disincentives, including disqualification of persons with more than one child from
contesting elections. Yet another bill, the Bachelor’s Allowance Bill 2000, suggests
incentives to those men who remain bachelors. Men, who, taking advantage of the
incentives, subsequently get married, are to be fined and imprisoned. Yet another bill,
the Population Control Bill 2000, also seeks to punish people who violate the small
family norm with rigorous imprisonment for a term of five years and a fine, not less
than Rs.50, 000. The Population Control and Family Welfare Bill, 1999, proposes in
addition to incentives and disincentives, the compulsory sterilization of every married
couple having two or more living children. These efforts at prescribing a two-child
norm seem to be found also in unlikely quarters: the Tamil Nadu agricultural labourers’
insurance bill, for instance, stipulates that labourers losing their limbs can only receive
insurance compensation if they have no more than two children. Recently, the
Maharashtra government passed a law for differential irrigation fees; farmers with more
than two children would be required to pay more for irrigation facilities. More
creatively, the U.P. government announced a scheme whereby applicants for gun
licences had to produce certificates that they had motivated five cases for sterilization.
More recently still, a delegation from the Indian Medical Association has urged the
government to, following China, implement a One Child Norm. In yet another move,
recalling the days of the Emergency, in Rajasthan, school teachers have been given
sterilization targets to achieve. And the Election Commission of the state of Uttar
Pradesh has suggested a two-child norm for contestants to all elective posts.
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Not to be left behind, the Government of India, led by the BJP, announced in April
2003 its plans to introduce in the Lok Sabha the Constitutional (79 thAmendment) Bill
seeking to restrict persons with more than two children from contesting elections. This
Bill, introduced in the Rajya Sabha in 1992, by the Congress, would first have to pass
the lower house. The Health Minister, Sushma Swaraj, speaking in the Lok Sabha,
announced that should there be consensus on the Bill, the government was prepared to
introduce it in the then ongoing session of Parliament. Fortunately elections intervened.
In short then, the Cairo consensus and the Natinal Population Policy notwithstanding,
there is widespread consensus among our policy makers and elites, and indeed our
middle classes, that something more drastic needs to be done on the population front,
that all the social ills in our country have their roots primarily in population. This call
for “giving teeth” to population policy, to “showing political will” takes the form of
disincentives and incentives and the norm for family size.
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The problem with these punitive approaches is both fundamental and pragmatic.
Fundamentally, it represents a profound misunderstanding of the relationship between
population and resources. Pragmatically, they are demographically unnecessary, and
indeed counterproductive. I would also argue that they are also morally compromised
since they violate the principle of natural justice, creating two sets of citizenship rights
on the basis of fertility. Indeed such policies represent going back to the days before
universal suffrage when property rights decided citizenship claims.
What proponents of the two-child norm or disincentives ignore is that there is a
substantial demographic transition underway in the country. The Total Fertility Rate
has declined by almost half a child in the six and half years between NFHS I (1993) and
II (2000). Replacement level, or close to replacement level fertility, has been reached in
Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Goa, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and
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Punjab. It is true that the TFR is high in U.P., Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
But even in these states it has declined between the two surveys from 4.82 to 3.99 in
U.P, 4 to 3.49 in Bihar, and from 3.90 to 3.31 in Madhya Pradesh. Rajasthan is the only
large state where the TFR has increased from 3.63 to 3.78. In other words, a substantial
and sustained fertility decline is underway in the country. Hastening this, however,
requires investments in the social sectors – health, education, employment, food and so
on – precisely measures that are being undermined by neo-liberal economic policies.
Interestingly, the NFHS-2 also reveals that the fertility rate that is currently sought,
2.13, is lower by 0.72 child (that is by 25 per cent) than the current TFR of 2.85. This is
to say, if unwanted births could be reduced, the TFR would drop to the replacement
level of fertility. It is estimated that the unmet need for family planning services
contributes 24.4 per cent to current population growth. Indeed this is acknowledged in
the NPP, which therefore marks as its priority, meeting the unmet need for health and
family planning services. There is also the related issue of the high unwanted fertility
due to high levels of IMR. To propose punitive measures, in this context, is thus clearly
absurd.
What is also important to acknowledge is that given the age structure of the population,
population growth will continue despite a fall in the birth rate due to what
demographers call momentum, i.e. the effect of a young age structure caused by high
population growth rates in the recent past. With a large proportion of the population almost 60 per cent - below the age of 30 years, further growth of population is
inevitable, unless of course mortality increases, which cannot be the aim of policy.
Population momentum contributes to as much as 69.7 per cent of current population
growth.
Above all, it is imperative to bear in mind that demographic transition is not merely a
geographical phenomenon, but is deeply imprinted by social inequalities. Thus those
sections of the population that have benefited through post-Independence development,
and are thus assured incomes, child survival, social security, health and education have
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completed their demographic transition. On the other hand, vast sections of the
population – particularly the dalits, the adivasis and the Other Backward Castes – who
have not so benefited are lagging behind in demographic transition. The NFHS for
1998-99, notes that the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) among the S.Cs, S.T.s and Other
Backward Castes is 83, 84 and 76 respectively, compared to 62 for Others. Similarly,
the Under Five Mortality Rate is 119 among the S.Cs, 126 among the S.T.s and 103
among the O.B.Cs compared to 82 Among the Others. Not surprisingly, the NFHS also
shows that the TFR is 3.15 for S.Cs, 3.06 for S.Ts, 2.66 among O.B.Cs and 3.47 among
illiterate women as a whole. It is, in contrast, 1.99 among women educated beyond the
tenth grade and thus more likely to be better off. Imposition of the two-child norm, and
the disincentives proposed, would mean that the majority of these deprived populations
would bear the brunt of the state’s withdrawal of ameliorative measures, as pitiably
inadequate as they are. With the recent Supreme Court judgement, the majority of these
populations are debarred from their right to contest elections in PRIs in one fell stroke
of the Supreme Court pen.
Laws related to a two-child norm for PRIs were introduced in 1994 in Andhra Pradesh,
Haryana, Orissa and Rajasthan, ironically in the very same year that the Government of
India was signing the ICPD which called for a new paradigm in population and
development, one that was not demographically driven, but emphasized reproductive
health and rights. In 2000, these laws were introduced in Madhya Pradesh and
Himachal Pradesh, and continued in Chattisgarh. Maharashtra joined this group of
states in 2003.
This law of course violates the spirit of the 73 rd Amendment to the Constitution.
Indeed, one hand of population policy takes away the space to deprived sections to
influence public life that the other hand of the 73 rd Amendment provides. A study
carried out recently in five states ( A.P., Haryana, Orissa, Rajasthan and M.P.) indicated
that the fall out of the imposition of the two-child norm on PRIs had been exactly as
anticipated. The largest number of cases of disqualification from contesting elections
was with reference to this law. Women formed 41 per cent of those disqualified; the
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dalits, adivasis and the OBCs formed an overwhelming 80 per cent of those
disqualified. The study also found no evidence to support the contention that the law
induced the adoption of the small family norm; nor indeed that members of the PRIs
were seen as role models. What it did find was evidence desertion of wives, denial of
paternity, neglect of female infants, non-registration of births, non-immunisation of
daughters to avoid registration. Equally significantly, there was evidence of forced
abortions and pre-birth elimination of females (Buch 2005). Another study in five
districts of Madhya Pradesh confirms these findings (Sama 2005). In short, the framers
of this law utterly ignored how patriarchy and class intersect in India, to deny women
and the marginalized communities a place in the sun. Indeed, that the law itself serves
to further victimize them.
The example of China is frequently cited, although inappropriately, to argue that “some
element of coercion” is necessary in the larger interests of the nation, and to assure
economic growth. Comparisons between India and China are inapposite for a large
number of reasons, including per-capita incomes, achievements in health, equity and
education that India can unfortunately not boast of. Further, China made what can only be
called a monumental blunder when it imposed a one-child norm (now officially
abandoned). This is because, as Sen has revealed, a long term-secular decline in the
fertility rate was already underway and such measures were therefore unnecessary (Sen
1995). Further, they have been counterproductive, contributing to the huge crisis of
missing girls, with the 2000 Census giving us a figure of more than 6 million missing
girls in the 0-6 years age group. China currently has a Sex Ratio at birth of 116.9 males to
100 females, indicating the huge scale of the pre-birth elimination of females,
approximately 11 per cent of girls (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2004). The
sharply skewed sex ratio has led to the problem of guang gun-er or “bare branches”, i.e.
young men with no prospects of marriage and family, and contributed to the sharp
increase in violence against women. Reports of trafficking of women into sex slavery
also occasionally make the news.
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The increasing availability of new technologies in our country – from the relatively rare
methods of enrichment of male sperm to selection of male embryos for implantation –
along with the now ubiquitous ultrasound machines used for sex selection, have provided
new and more widespread means to SSA. Indeed, General Electric and WIPRO, the
distributors of ultrasounds in India, have sold a disproportionate number in the states of
the North and West of the country, precisely the areas that have revealed a precipitous
decline of the CSR (George 2002). These technologies are often marketed to doctors with
loans from GE Capital.
A great deal of concern, even in official circles, has been expressed about the sharply
deteriorating juvenile sex ratios in the country, largely due to pre-birth elimination of
females. Data on the masculinisation of sex ratios at birth is yet another indicator of this
phenomenon. What is equally worrying is that the practice has spread to regions and
communities where it did not exist. What is not however equally recognized is how
population policies, as we have seen, contribute to this phenomenon. It is now
abundantly clear that given the strong patriarchy in the country and thus the ideology of
son-preference, particularly marked in the high fertility areas of the country, a vigorous
pursuit of the two- child norm is an invitation to female sex selective abortion. Indeed, it
was the explicit recognition of this link that compelled the Chinese government to
officially abandon its one-child per family norm. In India, between 1991 and 2001, in
urban areas, the CSR has declined from 935 to 903 and in rural areas from 948 to 934.
More ominously, between January and June this year, in Delhi the sex ratio at birth
indicates 819 females being born for every 1000 males; in the prosperous and educated
South Delhi zone, where demographic transition has by and large been completed, only
762 females were born for every 1000 males. In other words, population stabilization was
indeed being achieved, but at the cost of population balance. Interestingly, confirming
many of our fears, doctors in a recent study of abortion in Maharashtra, found to be
performing SSA even though they knew it had been banned, revealed that they did it for
many reasons. One was that that it was for the woman’s sake - to save her from illegal
abortions. The second reason cited was that if they did not do it, other doctors would.
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Above all, that it was for the good of the family and for that of the nation - since they
were helping bring down population growth (Bandewar 2003).
References
Venkatesan, J, “Two Child Norm Upheld”, The Hindu, 31st July 2003
Sarkar, Lotika and Ramanathan, Usha (2002), “Collateral Concerns”, Seminar, 511.
The World Bank (1993), India’s Family Welfare Programme: Towards a Reproductive
and Child Health Approach, New Delhi.
National Human Rights Commision (2003), Declaration: National Colloquium on
Population Policies, New Delhi.
International Institute for Population Sciences, National Family Health Survey (NFHS-2),
Mumbai, 2000.
Sen, Gita and Iyer, Aditi (2002), “Incentives and Disincentives: Necessary, Effective,
Just?”, Seminar 511.
Buch, Nirmala (2005), “Law of Two-Child Norm in Panchayats: Implications,
Consequences and Experiences”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.XL, No.24, 11th
June.
Sama (2005), Beyond Numbers: Implications of the Two-Child Norm, New Delhi.
Sen, Amartya (1995), “Population Policy: Authoritarianism Versus Cooperation”,
International Lecture Series on Population Issues, The John and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation, New Delhi.
National Bureau of Statistics of China (2004), Women and Men in China: Facts and
Figures, Place of publication unstated.
George, Sabu (2002), “Sex Selection/Determination in India: Contemporary
Developments”, Reproductive Health Matters, Vol.10, No.19.
Bandewar, Sunita (2003), “Abortion Services and Providers’ Perceptions: Gender
Dimensions”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.XXXVIII, No.21, May.
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