The Prospect for Planned Parenthood in India

Abstract

QF THE many major socioeconomic issues facing present-day India, none is more grave or more urgent than her population problem. Although a country's demographic situation may have many aspects, India's over-population-taking the form of tremendous pressure on her limited land and other resources-is the basic issue, since all programs for improvement are either deferred or frustrated as population overstrains the capacity of education, public health, sanitation and rural recovery. While the general economic context of the problem in terms of the ratios between the number of people and the available resources or between man and land has remained basically the same, the new data provided by the i95i Census has modified the factual framework somewhat. India's area and frontiers, as well as the political divisions of the states and their populations, have changed in the wake of independence. A brief review of the existing situation may serve not only to introduce the problem but also to contribute to an understanding of the difficulties inherent in implementing the major solutioninstitution of planned parenthood-which is now being attempted on a sizeable scale. Since i88i, when the first regular census was taken in India, there have been decennial censuses without a break. The i95i Census was the eighth regular census and the first in free India. With the exception of a certain amount of heat and emotion displayed in connection with recording the language spoken by the citizen interviewed, the i95i Census operations were as efficient, smooth and peaceful as could have been expected in a heterogeneous country marked by irrepressible cultural pluralism. The total population of India on March i, i95i, was 36i.8 million, on a total land area of I.27 million square miles. This figure includes the estimated populations of Jammu and Kashmir (4.4I million) and of the Part-B Tribal areas of Assam (o.56 million), where the administration rests lightly and where the i95i Census was not taken. The i95i popu-