By: Sujatha Rao
During the 1980s “Hum Do, Hamare Do” (We Two, Ours Two) was a popular campaign that ran across the country in India to promote the two-child policy. While there is no national two-child campaign as of now, in some states, there are certain local policies aimed at politicians, that prohibit them to contest in Panchayat elections if they have >2 children. The premise of this policy seems to stem from the thought that Politicians are to act as role models for the rest of the society, which is in itself highly suspect, given the fact that a reasonable chunk of our politicians has a criminal record of some kind or the other.

Once in a while, a debate arises whether we should have such a national policy to restrict the number of children to two or even one, against the backdrop of rising population in India which may as well make the country number One in terms of population numbers by overtaking China in the future.

Let’s try to examine this issue in detail. Is it as simple an issue as it seems? Is the “One child notion” a panacea for the population problems of our country?
Fortunately for us, we already have China to serve as an example of study for us. China’s experiment with “One Child Policy” would be very relevant to our country since
(a) India is the second-most populous country;
(b) India has some similarities with this Asian counterpart in terms of its gender biases and rich cultural heritage and long legacy issues.

One Child Policy of China

Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping introduced the one-child policy in 1979 to curb the population growth which was estimated at 970 million at the time and this policy was one of the most ambitious government initiated birth control projects in the history of mankind.

Successes of the Policy
• Lowering of the birth rate
The policy was successful in bringing the birth ratio to just 1.7 (as of 2018) by preventing an estimated 400 million births.
• Economic growth
While Chinese economy definitely improved over the last three decades at a very fast pace, how much of it can be attributed to the One Child Policy is somewhat questionable according to a lot of analysts.
Issues of the Policy
• Human rights violations.
The policy became highly controversial and criticized for the state’s levy of hefty penalties, forced abortions and sterilizations of millions of women in order to strictly implement the One Child Policy.
• Gender Imbalance:

Due to its cultural preference for male offspring, the one-child policy resulted into a huge gender imbalance, as many people resorted to aborting the female child, despite the sex-selective abortion being illegal in the country. In 2019, the country had a gender ratio of 114 males for every 100 females born, translating to about 30 million more men than women. Globally, the average sex ratio at birth is about 105 boys for every 100 girls.

• Aging Population
The flip side of the Policy is that China is projected to have 34.6% of people over the age of 60 by the year 2050. 91% of all the children born in 1983 were “single children” as opposed to 27% in the 1975. While this has pampered the “little emperors” with the doting attention of six adults comprising of four grandparents & two parents, a lot of concern is raised over “4-2-1” family structure, when it would be time for that ‘grown up emperor’ to support all of them, severely straining the availability of old age support at the individual family level.
The following data from the World Bank highlights this issue quite clearly.

China’s aging population issue is different from that of the other more developed countries, like Japan, Jacques deLisle, a Penn Law faculty who is an expert on Chinese Law pointed out. “China is facing the problem of becoming gray before it becomes rich.”
• Workforce shrinkage
The number of people entering China’s labor force has been declining, and the rate of decline is only expected to accelerate during the coming decades. The rise in the aged population and the drop in the workforce finally led to the Government’s relaxation of the one-child policy in 2015.
• Non-healing Wounds
While all the above numbers speak for themselves, the damage goes beyond mere numbers. The impact of the coercive practices that led to the killing of either fetuses or the newborn children, left behind in its blood-stained trail, wounds that refuse to heal even after so many decades. Families, especially women, are still paying the price for the gender discriminatory and abusive practices that rocked the nation during the reign of this policy.

What does this mean to India?
After learning about the disastrous effects of this policy in China, it is definitely not prudent to tread the path of such draconian measures for our country which is already reeling under the discriminatory practices of adverse gender selection even without such a policy.

Though India is riding the positive side of the Demographic Dividend right now, soon it shall cross the point where the country would get saddled with an aged population. The one-child policy would make the country reach that inflection point faster.
What should one do?
It’s worth its money to focus on educating the population, especially the girl children, in large numbers. Because statistics indicate that across the educated families, the two-child norm has already kicked in.
With the increase in literacy levels and the growing number of women going out to work, it’s also being noticed that most of families are increasingly resorting to having only one child.

At the national level, such a trend may ultimately result into the very same issues that we have seen in China. But at the same time forcing people to have more children is not going to be the right solution either.
As Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mei Fong said in her book ‘One Child Nation: The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment “I gradually realized it is not about giving birth to one or two children. It is about people making their own decisions.”
At an individual family level, siblings are an essential part of a child’s growth. Many a time, siblings grow into their adulthood becoming best of friends and they fall back on each other in times of need. Depriving children of this fundamental need doesn’t come across as the right thing to do.
Children having siblings often learn to share things amongst themselves quite naturally, and sharing as we know, is the fabric that binds a healthy society together.

Can we “adopt” a better practice?
Against this backdrop, it appears that there are no easy solutions to this complex issue both at the national and at an individual family level. Along with improving the literacy levels, it seems that there is something else the Government could focus on that might end up benefiting one and all. And that would be improving the state of healthy adoptions in the country.
A couple of things that can be targeted in this regard are:
(a) Bringing in reforms in the laws so that the process of adoption is made easier;
(b) Running campaigns in favour of adoptions through appropriate forums. Perhaps people like Sushmita Sen (who adopted two girl children), could become brand ambassadors for such campaigns.
These practices may help improve the percentage of the willing couples with single or no children to adopt a child, resulting in a win-win situation for the adopted child as well as the foster parents.
It would also benefit the nation at large by keeping the population in check, improving the economy of the country in its wake and also providing a caring home for the children who are in need of the same, simultaneously preventing a large chunk of them from becoming anti-social elements later on in life.
After all, every child, irrespective of its age and gender deserves the love and stability that a family can offer. We need to remember that the child had no say in its being born. It is the responsibility of the society to take care of them, now that they are here.
As somebody rightly said, adopting one child may not change the world, but for that one child, the world will change for the better forever.