OK, this is actually old news by today's standards. A month or more ago, Dubya announced
his stunning new finding on the rising foodstuff prices and the shortage thereof. As per him, Indians are eating the world out of foodgrains and hence the food shortage and rising prices.
Given that the U.S. Army is still trying to find the elusive WMD in Iraq, which Dubya was
sure Saddam had, we know how much intelligence is there behind this new proclamation.
I am not even trying to debate his statement, due to it being really illogical given the
economic facts we have freely available for anyone to access.
We have consumption figures available per capita for various countries for the various
food-groups like grains, dairy, poultry, cereals etc. Americans top the list in consumption
and on an average consume more than 5 times what an Indian consumes and 3 times
more than an average European. And, India is a net exporter of food-grains, which would
not be a possibility if we were eating ourselves out of home and hearth.
Anyway, instead of the narrow lines of nationality on which Bush would like to see the
problem, I would think it would make more sense to think as to how the problem can be
resolved so that every human being, be it an American or an Indian or a really starved
African in one of those dictator-ruled countries could have the food that he or she needs.
To be frank, India and other developing countries do have a role in this problem, albeit
indirectly. And that is the huge population increase happening by the day. More people
means more mouths to feed, which requires output from farms to keep pace. But, farming
is not seen as a lucrative profession in most parts of India. In Kerala, you would be stared
at as if you were a lunatic if you professed your intent to farm your land. Reasons for which
are voluminous enough to deserve a separate blog-post in itself.
There is only so many people that the earth can support and given the way we are going
about reproducing in India and other developing countries, we are heading towards disaster. When I was a kid, the family planning slogan was "We two, ours two", implying two kids max. And the norm at that time was 3 and above, with many families I know having 6-10 kids.
My BIL is one of 10 kids - just imagine the racket at a home with 10kids. :-) Ofcourse, to
have a cricket team, you would be short of just one person.
Anyway, now the slogan is "We are one, ours one", implying only 1 kid per family. Sounds
all nice, except for the fact that the norm now is 2 kids and in some cases even 3. And this
is not just about the segment of society that is illiterate and is not aware of issues caused by population explosion. I know scores of educated people who opt for 2 kids. The favourite
excuse being that a single kid will grow up lonely and with behavioural issues.
If that be the case, how about adopting one of the thousands of orphans and giving them
a life ? It will not only solve the problem of your kid growing up lonely, but also enable a
kid to have a home and family. And in the process, you would have done your bit to not
add to the burgeoning population and also done a good deed too. But given that adoption
figures indicate a decrease over the past few years, this does not seem to be a favourite
option for Indians. Maybe we need to learn a thing or two from Angelina Jolie.
There is only so much that governments can do to rein in population. Laws & controls
restricting the number of kids per family would be tough to implement. Instead, the
government can focus on creating awareness among the public as to the plethora of
problems that lie tightly coupled with increasing population.
Though, in the current scenario where we have educated couples opting for two or even
more kids, I just do not see any light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully good sense sinks
in before it is too late to make amends.
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