Growing Pains

This is a continuation of my diary from my RTW trip from October 2003.

There are a number of issues that have featured while I’ve been in the country that leave me very concerned about the impact of the needs of India in the future.

Just that morning I’d been reading in the paper about India 2020. This is an economic plan to turn India from a low income country into a middle income country by going for high economic growth. This year growth is forecast to be 8% and at that rate, by 2020, the Indian economy as a whole will be the fourth largest economy in the world after the US, Japan and China.

India 2020 however focuses solely on gross domestic product and the average income of the population. The UN had issued a detailed list of concerns about India’s development plans and a number of journalists had latched onto this. One in 6 people in the world are Indian, yet 1 in 3 people living without sanitation, electricity or access to education in the world live in India.

There are 1.1 billion Indians at the moment. By 2010 there will be 1.2bn, and it’s population will overtake that of China. India currently has no population control programme. At the current rate of growth, the population will grow to 2bn by 2050, or rather a quarter of the worlds population in 2050 will live in India and I don’t know how they’re all going to fit in.

Economic development brings new dilemmas too. For example still on the issue of population, the latest census has shown a dramatic decline in the number of girls being born. For every 1000 boys, there should be 980 girls born. The only place in India to still have that ratio is the city of Chennai (Madras as was). 10 years ago, the ratio was stable across the country. However in the last 10 years there has been an increase in the number of pre-natal scanners available to check the health of baby. These can also be used to tell whether the baby is a girl or a boy. This technology has led to a ratio of just 700 girls being born for every 1000 boys. Female children are simply being aborted. What does this mean in real terms though? Well as there have been 100m Indians born in the last decade, there are about 15m boys who will never find a bride. There will be another 15m in the next decade and if this figure holds at the same level, by 2050, there will be up to 100m men in the country who can never marry because there aren’t enough women to go round. Maybe this is the secret method of population control. No women in the future = no babies!

History shows that great gender imbalances in a population create issues of employment and crime and can also have an impact on a countries willingness to go to war. It could well mean that migration from India will dramatically increase, not just for political asylum or to reap economic benefits but out of the basic human need to find companionship with another.

The front pages of Delhi papers have led with the story of a particularly brutal rape all week. One paper has even come up with a logo emblazoned with the words “Delhi – unsafe for women” and had a six page set of articles about the issue, which is a serious problem in the city.

Another manifestation of the lowly opinion held in Indian society of women. I’ve been bombarded with all sorts of facts, figures and social factors since I’ve been in India and though I understand it is hard to read anything into these things, let alone start to suggest solutions to the problems of a billion people, there is much here and in the future that should concern us all. Will the government plan to raise income from $500 to $700 a year per person do much to alleviate any of these issues?