After decades of slumbering on the political backburner, it looks like the population question is inching its way back to the centrestage. A radical philosophical shift has taken place in the interim. Where we used to see only Malthusian monsters, we are now sort of looking at sleeping beauties. Everyone agrees some powerful sorcery will be required to make this transition in thinking bear material fruit?without following through on its education and healthcare promises,

India will be left with a labour ecosystem whose wastefulness will match the worst of what?s plaguing the environment today.

This looks doable today. Technology will help, just as it helped turn the population debate around. When Thomas Malthus wrote in 1798 that, ?the power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race?, he little anticipated how the balancing power of agricultural science could enable the planet?s natural capital to stretch nurture to increasing millions. For him, sicknesses, epidemics, wars and suchlike represented ?positive? checks. Yet, as the planet looks to add a couple of billion people within the next half century as compared to the billion total that gave Malthus the heebie jeebies, there is a sense that an all-fired harnessing of innovation and technology can not only sustain growing numbers but even provide them improved life quality.

If Malthus just couldn?t conceptualise a demographic dividend, the corollary was that he couldn?t imagine anything like a demographic deficit either. To be fair, neither could India when it went into population control overdrive in the 1970s?again with lots of unanticipated consequences. China is obviously a textbook case. Within a quarter century of the world?s harshest population control policies, it did succeed in bringing down the number of people living in extreme poverty by more than two-thirds. But its wealth-generating factories are already reporting labour shortages. With the ratio of six adults of working age for every retiree expected to worsen to 2:1 by 2040, or the number of young people aged 20-24 entering the workforce expected to drop by half in the next decade, China is facing the spectre of both rising pension costs and a receding demographic tide. By no means is it alone is facing such peril.

None of the 23 European countries that had fertility rates above replacement levels 30 years ago can claim the same today. In fact, as per present trends provided by the Optimum Population Trust, Italy will lose 86% of its population by this century?s end, Spain 85% and Germany 83%. By some cosmic coincidence (?), Greece?s birth rate is actually the lowest in the EU. Given that this Trust represents one of the strongest Malthusian holdouts in a metamorphosing era, we need to take its projections with a pinch of salt. Its Web site has a ?population clock? ticking away ominously and it?s holding on to a neocolonial desire for controlling ?developing? countries? populations. Its spokespersons include people like Sir David Attenborough, who still unabashedly proclaims that there is no problem that would not be easier to solve with fewer people. But the bottom line is sound. Europe is looking at a worsening demographic deficit and this does not portend well for its economic future. Nor has it had the good instincts to solidly tap into immigration, which is helping the US sidestep the Gordian knot snaring Europe today.

But none of this justifies just sitting back on our haunches. Adding an Australia a year?even as the planet adds on two more Chinas or eight more Americas by 2050?does not make for a rosy picture even after admitting that it?s not quite the nightmare that modern Malthusians make it out to be. An increasing burden on natural resources not to mention a thinning of the government?s ability to provide essential services remain very credible sources of concern. The point hitherto has been that draconian measures, whether in the shape advocated by Malthus or practiced by China, can be rather counterproductive. Instead, as India begins to reconsider the population question seriously, it needs to consider a more holistic address.

The last census not only showed that India?s fertility rate had dropped considerably through the first decade of liberalisation, but also that it was 2.02 for literates as opposed to 3.09 for illiterates. While demography remains an important variable in calculating a country?s growth prospects, there could be no more convincing evidence that education and healthcare merit analogous weight. This is a pattern that holds true globally and historically, that as women get education, they are more likely to go out to work and demand contraception. So, when we make a date with the future, let?s not mark our calendars with the day that India?s population reaches ?replacement rate?. Instead, let?s look forward to the day that every Indian woman has access to reproductive healthcare and family planning services.

renuka.bisht@expressindia.com