India is On Its Way to Implement Two-Child Population Control Policy

India’s population is expected to overtake China’s within the next 10 years. This is six years sooner than what was previously predicted.

China current has a population of 1.38 billion compared to the 1.31 billion in India.

China has dealt with its massive population with laws limiting the number of children families can have and it looks as though India is starting to follow suit.

Assam, a state in northeast India is considering a bill which would limit all government employees to two children.  

This will be the eighth state in India to adopt this policy, if the bill is passed. Local elected reps in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Bihar, Gujarat, and Uttarakhand are all banned from having a third child.

“If a person wants to do a job with the Assam government, that person should not have more than two children,” said Himanta Diswa Sarma, the Assam Minister of Education, Health, and Finance at a press conference, reports the local Northeast Today.

“When the policy comes into effect, those who are in government jobs and already have two children should not go for a third child. If an employee will have more than two children while on job, that particular employee will lose his or her job.”

This policy would certainly limit the talent pool for government positions. Any candidate with more than two children will be disqualified from running for a local, municipal, or district office. The current officials and government employees with over two children will be forced to resign.

The proposed measure by Sarma is expected to be introduced during an upcoming budget session by the Assam Legislative Assembly which is held from February to March of this year.  

It so far has the support of the members of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has the most majority in Assam’s unicameral legislature. Meaning it is likely it will pass.  

Not to mention, since India’s Supreme Court has deemed two-child policies in other states as constitutional, it is highly unlikely that the court will overturn Assam’s two-child max policy.

“The state government neither intends to compel anyone to adhere to the two-children norm nor would it use coercion as a means to implement the Policy,” wrote Wasbir Hussain in the northeast India’s Sentinel. “In principle, there should be no problem with this Policy.”

However, many disagree and argue that the rule forces individuals to pick between family or their career.

“Because men in India often decide alone the number of children couples will have, some female elected representatives have been forced from their posts due to their husband’s desire for a third child. Other women have been forced to hide their pregnancies, registering their children under the names of their relatives or refusing to register them altogether,” writes Life News.

These policies have even led government representatives to abandon their children. Also, the cultural preference for sons has caused these government employees to only sacrifice their jobs if they have a son. The male-to-female population ratio is extremely off due to the large number of sex-selection abortions.

“After two-child policies are put into place, however, upper-caste women are more than 3 percent more likely to have a boy if their first child was a girl, indicating that women may be resorting to sex-selective abortion to secure for themselves a son before their birth quota is filled,” writes Life News.

This has become such an epidemic that doctors in India are now prohibited from informing parents of the sex of their unborn child. 

Not to mention, more couples may turn to abortion or sterilization as a “solution” to keeping their jobs. This has already started to happen. A woman running for a local post in Andhra Pradesh got an abortion five months into her pregnancy to avoid geting disqualified from the election. She lost the election and then her two-year-old son passed away soon after.  

“Assam’s total fertility rate has plummeted overall. While women were having an average of 3.5 children over their reproductive lifetimes in993, that number has dropped to 2.2 today, a number which sits slightly below India’s replacement fertility rate (2.25 according to UNDESA,)” writes Life News.

Is an attempt to decrease population rates worth not only the emotional burden, but the negative impact it will have economically, especially on the lower castes?

“A two-child policy in Assam will not bring about better economic outcomes for Assamese citizens and threatens to unnecessarily target and burden lower castes, the poor, and immigrants. It would also unnecessarily place undue burden on women and on people from lower socioeconomic strata that wish to run for panchayat posts. The policy threatens to encourage men to abandon their wives if they intend to have more than two children, and will undoubtedly increase the incidence of sex-selective abortion,” writes Life News.

Editor’s note:  Populations controls like this are unconsionable. In God and nature, no person should be restricted by the state in having children. Unfortunately, India and China are in such a condition that massive suffering will occur unless they do something about population growth. Its a tough nut.