Special Feature

The World Population: Celebrating Six Billion

On Tuesday, 12 October 1999, the world population crossed the symbolic barrier of six billion when the beautiful baby named Adnan Nevic was born to 29-year old Fatima-Nevic in the University Clinical Centre of the city of Sarajevo at 0002 local time. For San Jose Mercury News, this child symbolized human renewal and hope. UN secretary-general Mr. Kofi Annan acknowledged the symbolism of birth in a city still scarred by years of war. He said that the six-billionth baby is a symbol of the tolerance and multi-religious atmosphere that once characterized Sarajevo and Bosnia.

Less than two months ago, on August 15, India's population crossed one billion mark (BBC News, August 10), making India the second billion plus country of the world. Nobody knows, really or symbolically, where India's one-billionth child was born. On present projections, India looks set to overtake China by 2045. A report by the Worldwatch Institute, based in Washington DC, says the birth of the billionth Indian "is not a cause for celebration". It says half of India's adults are illiterate, more than half of its children are undernourished, and a third of its people live below the poverty line. One observes that while in the recent general writings on population, the six billionth child is being celebrated, the one-billionth Indian, curiously, is not.

The battle of ideas is over. The questions such as whether population growth is good for the mankind or bad have lost their appeal with the death of modernity. Population is no more seen as an explosive or a cancerous growth afflicting the developing nations. The ghost of Malthusianism has been expelled. But it is also not a cause for celebration, at least in the case of underdeveloped nations.It is true that so far with improved technology and better organizing skills humanity has successfully faced the challenge of population growth. But can we say that there is no need to worry about the population dynamics or that China was necessarily overenthusiastic about her one child policy? Is no limit really necessary? Will the providence really ensure that, however numerous we are, nobody will go short, as the religious leaders think?

We, in India, certainly need a practical approach. Half of our population does go short already. Fall in grain land per citizen (from 0.21 in 1960 to 0.10 today and 0.01 in 2050), projected 25% fall in fresh water available per person by 2050, drying of main rivers, urbanisation, fish catches reaching their sustainable limits, climatic changes due to industrialization, extinction of growing number of species, growing energy requirements and waste disposal are some problems which need both demographic and technological solutions. The optimism of the United Nations "Day of Six Billion" (D6B) underestimates an equally strong feeling among many that a great challenge lies ahead; to feed, clothe, and house the growing population. Fortunately, however, as noted by Kofi Annan, the means to face the challenge are available. The question is whether we have the will. Social sciences do not and perhaps can never know the causes and consequences of population growth as scientific facts but human ingenuity demands that we work for promoting reproductive health, literacy, sustainability of development and reducing disparities in income, for their own sake, if not with the view to controlling population. We are also required to develop new resource-saving technologies, not just for those to be born during the first half of the next century but for all those yet to be born. At the present level of technological development, it may be indeed possible to provide enough for the nine billion projection of 2050 AD, but we must realize that when the world population stabilizes and achieves zero population growth, it does not mean that there will be no new additions. Around 2050 AD, about one billion babies will be born every decade and if we plan for only two centuries of human survival more, we must provide enough for the twenty billions more to be born on this small planet.

A.K.Sharma

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

Indian Institute of Technology

Kanpur - 208016

e.mail : arunk@iitk.ac.in

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