Why India's Population Control Measures Must Take Note Of Climate Question

Should India, a country of 1.3 billion that, as the United Nations바카라� predicts, will soon overtake China to become the highest peopled nation of the world in 2027, have a population policy that curbs the growth of human numbers? And, if so, what should be the key foundation behind the implementation of such a policy?

The primary rationale offered by the political elite in contemporary India is 바카라�improving바카라� the 바카라�living standards바카라� of Indian people. Population growth needs to be curbed, the mainstream political leadership, across political parties argues, to nurture and bolster India바카라�s 바카라�demographic dividend바카라� 바카라� the higher economic growth potential, typical of countries (with a significant number of young people) having a working-age population larger in share than the non-working age population. Consider the ethnonationalist apprehensions of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party바카라�s members, suggesting that if India kept adhering to the supposedly misplaced legacy of the 1994 Cairo consensus, prioritised the safeguarding of reproductive rights to necessary population-reduction measures, and, therefore, did not enforce a 바카라�two-child norm바카라� with immediate urgency, then 바카라�women will not be safe and might have to be kept under the veil, like in Pakistan바카라�. Or think about the claim made by a bigwig-led group called the 바카라�Taxpayers바카라� Association of Bharat,바카라� since 2017, suggesting that while the norm-abiding taxpayers follow the small-family norm with acute diligence, the 바카라�non-entrepreneurial바카라� individuals receiving subsidised food, clothes and housing are reluctant to adhere to it. Or, for that matter, consider the recent framing of the population problem by the opposition leader, Indian National Congress바카라�s Rahul Gandhi, exclusively in terms of whether people of working age are actually working, being 바카라�productive바카라� and, therefore, 바카라�adding value바카라� or whether this demographic is doing none of this and, consequently, turning into a 바카라�liability바카라�.

These examples allude to how the Indian state apparatus assumes that the most effective way to conceptualise the population problem is to think in terms of the 바카라�dividend바카라�, i. e. how to make the 바카라�surplus바카라� population 바카라�valuable바카라� and 바카라�productive바카라�, by making it save, invest, and consume. However, in today바카라�s age of an escalating climate crisis and given that India is the , it is by now clear that the debate on reducing human numbers in India, cannot be solely about enhancing the lifestyle and the material conditions of living of the Indian people. The population question today has to consider the climate question (i. e. how as a species we are literally under the shadow of the Sixth Extinction) with instant urgency.

Was mainstream political leadership in India ever able to dissociate the question of human number-reduction from the issue of nurturing the 바카라�demographic dividend바카라�? The answer might have been a resounding yes.

Reading some under-researched speeches and writings of independent India바카라�s first woman prime minister, Indira Gandhi, especially through the prism of some of the ground-breaking conceptual categories offered by historian Dipesh Chakrabarty바카라�s 2021 book 바카라�바카라� proves this. They reveal that Mrs. Gandhi, often held culpable (and sometimes rightly so) for the forced sterilisation programmes implemented by her son, Sanjay Gandhi, during the infamous period of the 바카라�National Emergency바카라�, and thereby for 바카라�emasculating바카라� men through forced vasectomy programmes, was, during the course of her political career, able to dissociate the urgent question of population reduction from the emphasis on enhancing the 바카라�demographic dividend바카라� in a crucial yet under-acknowledged way.

Indira Gandhi linked the problem of unsustainable human numbers to the climate question by simultaneously operating in two (what Chakrabarty identifies as) heterogeneous registers of thought. First, a short-term register of 바카라�anthropological difference바카라� where the subject of population is mainly a question of, as Chakrabarty calls, 바카라�intra-human (in)justice바카라�. Consider, for instance, her inaugural address delivered at the seventeenth conference of the International Union of Family Organisations, in 1966, where she asks, 바카라�What is a 바카라�good life,바카라�바카라� the attainment of which drives our measures towards family-planning? 바카라�Does it mean the use of as much chromium and glass per head as in the developed countries?바카라� Or consider her gestures in the oft-cited speech delivered at the UN Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm in 1972 [almost 16 years prior to the setting up of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)]. At a certain point in this speech, she expresses grim concern over the fact that groups or individuals who come across as less competitive, and, according to a rigged test of proficiency, are identified as 바카라�less efficient바카라� (often in relation to the pursuit of exploiting natural resources), are simultaneously regarded as 바카라�lesser breeds바카라�, 바카라�unworthy바카라� of being born (like women, black and brown people, older civilisations).

The question of anthropogenic climate change and the population issue are here linked via the analytic of, drawing from Chakrabarty바카라�s schema, historical injustice between humans. The underlying presupposition is that the 바카라�developed바카라� countries, men, white people (who have identified themselves as 바카라�more efficient바카라� and therefore as belonging to 바카라�higher breeds바카라�), have historically caused much more per capita emission and therefore ecological harm than the 바카라�developing바카라� countries, women, black and brown people.

However, Mrs. Gandhi simultaneously operated in a second (and often understated) register of what Chakrabarty calls 바카라�deep history바카라� or 바카라�unhuman temporality바카라�. She realises, echoing Chakrabarty바카라�s key concern, that in a hypothetical world, grounded in equity in terms of wealth and income distribution between the developed and the developing countries or the rich and the poor, the cumulative carbon footprint (leading to the climate crisis) would have remained the same, if not exacerbated. It is precisely this awareness that made her highlight how human existence on earth can and must be read as human beings바카라� ardent endeavour to prolong, what she identified as, humans바카라� 바카라�tenancy of this planet바카라�, or for that matter, induced her to make the tantalising claim that, 바카라�[...] we must ask if man himself is growing into a being worth saving.바카라�

This awareness, in fact, also caused her to suggest that 바카라�one cannot be truly human [...] unless one looks upon바카라� not only all fellow-humans but 바카라�all creation with the eyes of a friend바카라� and uphold the Sanskrit phrase 바카라�Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam바카라� (the earth as family), echoing what the posthumanist

feminist Donna Haraway almost 50 years later would call 바카라�non-biogenetic kin-making바카라� (made visible by the hashtag #MakingKinNotBabies).

Drawing from Chakrabarty바카라�s outline, in this second register, there is not just a reckoning of the short-term history of intra-human injustice induced by capitalism and colonisation that would in turn lead to the calculation of per capita emission figures to tackle the question of climate justice, but simultaneously an acute consciousness of the damage caused by a forgetting of 바카라�deep history바카라�, i. e. how homo sapiens (both rich and the poor, coloniser and the colonised), owing to the histories of colonialism-induced capitalism, had to constitute themselves as the dominant species, thereby leading towards the extinction of other species.

This is not to say that Mrs Gandhi was completely uninterested in the relationship between the question of justice between humans and the climate question. However, remarkably resonating Chakrabarty바카라�s anguish, what some of these writings offer is a recognition of how the climate question includes, as well as exceeds, the question of intra-human justice. It is both the question of domination of humans by humans and the question of humans as a dominant species, leading towards species-extinction.

Interestingly, this is distinctly reminiscent of the critique of Mohandas Gandhi that Rabindranath Tagore engaged in. Gandhi made a public claim in 1934 about how an earthquake in the Indian state of Bihar was caused due to the human sin of untouchability. Tagore critiqued Gandhi for aiming to understand a planetary phenomenon like that of an earthquake (belonging to the realm of deep history) exclusively via the lens of intra-human injustice, and, therefore, for his misplaced assumption that human agency is forceful and dominant enough to, in Tagore바카라�s words, 바카라�drag down the natural world to ruins.바카라� It is not a mere coincidence that it is precisely this Tagore - deeply critical of anthropocentric gestures of 바카라�human distinctiveness바카라� 바카라� who, as (India바카라�s erstwhile minister of Environment and Forests) Jairam Ramesh바카라�s recent book reminds us, Indira Gandhi was hugely impacted by, and in fact, identified as the 바카라�ecological man바카라�.

In fact, Mrs. Gandhi was able to critique some of the fundamental tenets of socialism based upon the historical development of industrialisation in the West thanks to her ability to operate simultaneously in both these registers. The best example of her interrogation of socialist presuppositions was when she, echoing key anti-colonial concerns of Mohandas Gandhi about the dearth of the analytic of 바카라�sacrifice바카라� in Bolshevism, claims, 바카라�all the 바카라�isms바카라� of the modern age 바카라� even those which in theory disown the private profit principle 바카라� assume that man바카라�s cardinal interest is in acquisition.바카라�

This once again directly resonated with Chakrabarty바카라�s contention that most modern ideas of 바카라�freedom바카라�, 바카라�justice바카라� and 바카라�equality바카라�, including socialist ones, nonetheless ground themselves on an 바카라�ever-expanding foundation of fossil-fuel use.바카라� In fact, engagements with this idea of 바카라�deep history바카라� also made her critique, what she identified as 바카라�the will to freedom of the individual,바카라� with which the 바카라�modern age began,바카라� and argue that while education and literacy are important aspects of being disciplined, one need not always 바카라�wait for literacy바카라� to inculcate a 바카라�culture of discipline바카라� in a democracy.

Indira Gandhi바카라�s interrogation of the act of identifying education as the fulcrum of democratic ethics vis-à-vis the population issue is important for another reason. In the present ethno-populist

political context in India, political elites who critique the ruling party for its punitive, racialising, anti-minoritarian, population policies, often identify women바카라�s access to education, employment and, therefore, contraception as the major antidote to the crisis of both overpopulation as well as a languishing population in India.

However, Mrs. Gandhi바카라�s analytical framework helps us realise that while augmenting women바카라�s education is indispensable, it is simultaneously inadequate to tackle the population question, simply because of the climate crisis that urbanisation-induced unsustainable human numbers has caused. This is because even if all women in India were to have access to education and, therefore, to reproductive rights [thereby ensuring that the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) reaches replacement levels, i. e. about 2.1 children per woman, as is predicted in the ], Chakrabarty reminds us that we will still have the problem of over-population in the cities. This is because, he adds, cities will still continue to be, what urban theorist Mike Davis called, a 바카라�planet of slums바카라�, primarily due to the massive rural exodus to cities, leading to the urban proletariat-induced annihilation of other species, and, in the process, worsening the climate crisis. Moreover, the ordinary technologies that make access to education for a large number of gendered, urban proletariat possible and easier, in fact, accelerate the rate of climate catastrophe.

Finally, during the historical period under consideration (i. e. the early to mid-1970s), on the one hand, one arm of the state, in the form of ministers like Indira Gandhi바카라�s own son, Sanjay Gandhi, and India바카라�s then Minister of Planning, Ashok Mehta, were talking about the question of human number-reduction as one that should ideally be grounded in enhancing the aspirational dimensions of the middle class, bourgeois, nuclear family (Sanjay Gandhi, for example, suggested that 바카라�modern바카라�, newly married couples should aim at, to quote his exact words, 바카라�house first and baby next바카라�). However, on the other hand, another arm of that same state machinery, in the form of the Prime Minister, Mrs. Gandhi, at least in some of her public deliberations and writings, was beginning to question the pegging of population reduction exclusively to the acquisitive aspirations of homo sapiens. In other words, she was articulating the need of the 바카라�small family norm바카라� in a language that was essentially heterogeneous and polyvocal.

Given this brief genealogy of the way in which the population debate was tackled by a key populist Indian political leader in the past, the question we need to ask is this: What do we lose when mainstream political idioms, across political ideologies, in a country emitting about two- and-a-half tons of greenhouse gases per person (half the world average), lose the aforementioned epistemic heterogeneity while talking about the population question?

The future of the 바카라�world population question바카라� 바카라� the debate on whether we should control human numbers and if 바카라�so many can live well바카라� - largely depends on whether the case for reducing human numbers in India is made exclusively to flourish the category of the 바카라�demographic dividend바카라� that can lead the 바카라�good life바카라� of saving, investing and consuming, or whether the case is made in ways that are more consistent with the ethico-politics of a planetary consciousness. The choice is open.

(This appeared in the print edition as "Prescient Perspective")

(Views expressed are personal)

Sreenanti Banerjee is ESRC Postdoctoral fellow in sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London