Tunneling out of the poverty-population trap

by Ashok Khosla

National unity and security are undoubtedly crucial for our survival as an independent, self-
reliant nation capable of alleviating poverty and permitting our people to reach their full
potential. But equally crucial will be how quickly we achieve a balance between our
population and the resource base. All thinking people recognize this fact and yet most have
accepted the massive destruction of our environment and unabated rise of the population
with helpless resignation. Most of us seem to assume that it is somebody else’s problem.
Others just hope that natural factors will somehow make it go away on its own.
Despite the extraordinary progress made by India since independence in such varied fields
of human endeavor as food production, energy, industry and science, a very large number
of our people are caught on a never ending treadmill of continuing poverty and deprivation.
There is, however, enough evidence to suggest that our political leaders, the scientific
community, the voluntary sector and the public could, working together, remedy this
aberration in our nation’s history.
The first and most immediate threat to the security, and indeed to the very unity and
survival, of our nation is the continuing growth of poverty and rapid deterioration of the
nation’s resources, in part created by the careless choice of our development priorities, and
in part by the continued and rapid growth of our population.

The signs of an impending and general breakdown of the resource and environment
systems which support us are already here, unmistakable and visible are to see:
· Precipitous drying of drinking water sources
· Rapid vanishing of forests
· Intensification of floods and drought
· Explosive growth of unemployment
· Catastrophic mushrooming of urban slums
· Chronic and pervasive malnutrition

The demands on our infrastructure and resources have become unbearable: in the next
dozen years, we will have to build as many schools, hospitals and power stations as were
built during the entire prior history of India. Undoubtedly, other measures – many of them
equally urgent – will also have to be taken, particularly by the more affluent members of
our society: to limit unnecessary consumption, to reduce waste, to change lifestyles to be in
harmony with nature.
But it is massive resource degradation and runaway population growth which we believe to
be the spectre which, if unchecked, will haunt the world of our children. And if we do not
change directions on these by conscious choice, nature will inevitably make the choice for
us. The commitment to better environment, and no less, the demographic behaviour of any
section of society, such as the patterns of births, deaths and migration, is inextricably linked
with the level of participation of that group in national development and in how much of the
fruits of this development its members can share.

To slow down the massive destruction of our environmental resource base, and of the
growth of our population, we propose that all political parties agree to adopt a simple seven
point programme that is given the highest priority in their work. We believe that, from now,
all development action must be designed above all other priorities, and directly to :
· Satisfy the basic needs of every citizen
· Fulfil the potential of our children
· Raise the status and self-determination of women
· Create meaningful work and living wage for all.
· Enlarge the possibilities for social advancement
· Enhance the personal security of old people.
· Facilitate access to the means of family planning.

Until environmental restoration and the demographic transition is well under way and the
requisite social conscience has been built up, any activity which does not meet these
criteria is largely short-sighted and peripheral to the interest of our country as a whole.
These issues need a new social contract between political leaders, government, voluntary
agencies, private sector and people’s organisations and cannot now be left to any one
constituency alone to deal with. More important, it must be placed in the hands of the
people, above any parochial consideration of caste, colour or creed – and outside the
arena of electoral politics. q