Population Planning in India: National and Foreign Priorities

Abstract

India depends heavily on foreign experts to formulate its population policy because those domestic political leaders involved in policy making are alienated from the masses—they hold to Western values, lack competence in technical skills, are reluctant to come to grips with urgent social problems, and have given way to pressure from powerful vested interests. National and foreign priorities are closely identified. Policy formulators have sidetracked the fight against the basic social and economic problems of the country and have identified population planning with a birth control that masquerades under the name of family planning. This has been a fundamental and almost fatal mistake. Because of this approach, all attempts at family planning have failed to bring their intended results, and it has not been possible to make a significant dent in India's population problem. A threshold level of social and economic development must be attained before any family planning program can begin to bring about a sustained drop in the birth rate. Family planning should be part of a broadly based integrated plan of social and economic development. This will require changes at the political, administrative, social and economic levels to allow development of suitable plans to effectively and expeditiously implement the social and economic development programs.