By Dr. Sawraj Singh
On October 31, 2011, the world population became 7 billion. In the last 13 years, the world gained one billion more people. In the last two centuries, the world population has grown very rapidly. Never before has the world seen such a rapid growth in the population. In 1804, the world population was only one billion; in 1922, it became two billion; in 1959, three billion; in 1974, four billion; in 1987, five billion; and in 1999, it became six billion. These figures prove that in the last two centuries, the population has grown very rapidly, particularly after the traditional imperialism changed into globalization.
Some people may give the argument that the growth of population is the result of scientific progress, particularly because of better health care, better medicines, and better treatments. The infectious diseases have been mostly controlled and the average life expectancy has improved. However, if this was true, then the developed countries should have seen more rapid growth compared to the developing countries because they have better medicines, better treatment modalities, and longer average lifespan. However, exactly the opposite has happened. The population in the developing countries has grown much faster than the developed countries. For example, in 2050, the world population is expected to become 9.3 billion. Out of the 2.3 billion more people, 97% will be from the developing countries and only 3% from the developed countries.
There is a relationship between the imperialist policies and the population, this fact can be proved by comparing the populations of India and China. India has adopted the imperialist globalization model of development while China has adopted an alternate model of development. India’s population has shown uncontrolled growth since 1947. After the communist revolution of 1949, China has been able to control its population. China felt that the growing population was putting undue pressure on the available resources, resulting in a lower quality of life for the people. China took sincere and serious steps to control its population. In 1974, China applied a one-child policy. The families were given incentives to have one child and were given disincentives if they had more children. This policy helped to control the population. It is said that if China had not adopted this policy, then there would have been 400 million more people and the world population would have reached seven billion in 2007. In 2050, China’s population will be 1.45 billion. This means that out of every six people in the world, one will be Chinese. In the period between 1660 to 1700, one out of every three people in the world was Chinese. Therefore, China has reduced its share of the world population to half.
On the other hand, India’s population has been growing uncontrolled. In 1947, the population has been growing uncontrolled. In 1947, the population was 330 million. In less than 50 years, it crossed the billion mark. In 2050, India’s population is expected to exceed the Chinese population. The population in the Indian cities has exploded. Since 1947, many Indian cities have experienced fifteen to twenty times growth in their population. For example, Delhi’s population was 75,000 in 1947; now, it has exceeded 15 million. Such a rapid growth in population has severely taxed the natural resources. The water table has gone down in a big way, the forests are being cut at an alarming rate, and the exploding population is contributing to environmental pollution. Generally, it is believed that we need about 17% land under forest cover. However, in the states close to Delhi such as Haryana and Punjab, only about 4% of the land is covered by the forests. Newly released reports from international institutions have brought forward shocking statistics of the inequalities in India. For every ten women in India, 4 are illiterate. The World Bank estimates that India ranks second in the world for the number of children suffering from malnourishment, 47% of Indian children are malnourished. The Global Hunger Index (GHI) Report has ranked India 15th, furthermore, India has earned the dubious distinction of being one of the three countries in which the GHI actually increased from 22.9 to 23.7 between 1996 and 2011. The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world, and is nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa. 56% of Indian women suffer from anemia while 80% of children between 6 and 35 months of age suffer from anemia. The recently released Human Development Index 2011 report ranks India as 134 out of 187 nations, while China’s HDI rank is 101. India’s rank is behind less economically developed countries such as the Philippines and Iraq. Also, India’s Gender Inequality Index is 0.6, the highest in South Asia. India has the world’s highest population of the multidimensionally poor, at 612 million; this is more than half of India’s entire population. It is a growing challenge to meet the food and the water needs of such a huge population. Not only has it become a big problem in the cities, but even in the countryside, this has become a very big problem. The landless population is finding it increasingly difficult to have a proper place to answer nature’s call. There is hardly any doubt about the fact that the uncontrolled growth in population has led to the drastic lowering of the living standards of the people.
There is still another figure which clarifies the trends of the growing population; this is the fertility rate. The developed countries have much lower fertility rates than the developing countries. The average is 2.1. India’s fertility rate is 2.68 while China’s fertility rate is 1.77. Russia’s fertility rate is 1.56, while Germany’s fertility rate is 1.36. There is a very large difference in America’s and Canada’s fertility rate: 2.05 and 0.63, respectively. These figures clearly show that while there is a relationship between the level of development and the fertility rate, there is also a relationship between the concept of a welfare state and the fertility rate. The fertility rate is also showing the trends that in the future, the population will continue to grow at a much faster pace in the developing countries and the developed countries will continue to experience a shortage of the workforce, therefore they will have to bring people from developing countries to meet their requirements of the work force. For example, Canada with a population of more than 34 million, will need 1% of this figure (more than 340,000 people) a year to meet the needs of its work force.
Capitalism has dehumanized people and has reduced them to being just consumers. It has treated people as commodities rather than people and has looked at them as a source of profit. Capitalism is applying the principles of supply and demand to maximize its profits. The western imperialist countries are treating the developing countries of the third world as factories to produce human beings. The more the production of humans, the more will be their profits. They will take some of these people to their countries and use them as sources of cheap labor, and keep the others in the countries of their birth and exploit their labor there. Like the other polluting industries, they want to move the human producing factories to the developing countries, thereby making them still more congested and polluted, while keeping the developed countries relatively cleaner.
We have examples of countries such as Cuba and China who have protected their people from the imperialist exploitation. If India really wants to control its population, then it has to reject the imperialist model of development of globalization and should adopt a pro-nature and pro-people alternate model of development.
Dr. Sawraj Singh, MD F.I.C.S. is the Chairman of the Washington State Network for Human Rights and Chairman of the Central Washington Coalition for Social Justice. He can be reached at [email protected] or 509-962-3652.
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