The annual rate of increase in the country’s total headcount currently seems to have come down significantly compared to the years some two decades ago. The rate of yearly addition to the mass of earlier year(s) and the actual increment of more than one crore every year need to be reckoned together for a clear understanding of the phenomenon of population explosion, a term occasionally heard in public domain. The numbers of the country’s diverse sections based on faiths and creeds they are known to follow and wish to be identified under those faiths, castes as revealed by their personal names, ethnicity, regions that host them egging them to be called sons-of-the-soil, lingo spoken (including those without script) and so on, going by the demographic picture sourced to official data, sets a scenario in which some all-too-familiar sections pro-actively increase their numbers resulting in a steadily rising proportion of people in the total headcount. This feature is on expected lines in the backdrop of vociferous clamour for favoured treatment for jobs in the Government as well as plum posts in many establishments and berths in the Cabinets of State Governments as in Karnataka.

Senior citizens can vouch for times when decisions were made by powers that be, like in the period of monarchy in the erstwhile Mysore State, in the matter of identifying persons for key positions in administration, not to forget the posts of Professors and Vice-Chancellors of the Universities, based on their credentials, irrespective of other aforementioned classifications, much to the delight of society of those days. Today’s dispensation is a far cry from that of the past.

While the country is endowed with bountiful resources that support life of (its rising) human population as well as all other (shrinking) life forms, in addition to sustained production in agri and industry sectors, their per capita access to these is dismally low compared to global norms, prompting the view in many quarters that the country’s large population is indeed a national liability. Further, the inference that if the country’s people did not keep the rate and increment of its population in check, many would starve, is nearer to reality than just a harsh-sounding remark. While the right of enduring progeny to any family cannot be questioned, the cause of country’s wellness also cannot be sidelined. In this context, PM Modi’s remark on population comes with a timely message that population explosion was a challenge now and for the future, adding that those who had small families were patriots, an appropriate perspective of patriotism.