Managing Population – Kerala (India) does it right…
from Flickr (CC License)
Human population growth – it’s one of the most controversial and difficult aspects of our environmental crisis. In all likelihood, it is controversial because it’s difficult: Human beings are precious, especially if you hold to the Biblical teaching that humans are ‘created in the image of God‘ – but even if you don’t have that perspective. Really, which of us, no matter what our religious (or non-) persuasion, would put a pet or a backyard squirrel on the same plane as one of our children or grand-children?
The difficulty lies here: If every human being is precious, how can there be too many of us? How can there be too much ‘preciousness’? But it is clearly possible to have too many people in one place at one time. Ever read a news story about an overloaded ferry boat? How about the woman in California who recently gave birth to octuplets, though she was unmarried, without financial support and already had six children? This is the population problem in miniature: God in his wisdom placed us on a globe that, by definition, only has so much space, so much water, so much oil, so much whatever… And whether you believe the maximum population level is four billion, six billion, or 50 billion, there is a limit? I personally believe we passed the ideal limit sometime in the last couple of decades – but that’s purely an academic point. Once the people are here, the challenge is…
Well, the challenge is and always has been this: How to keep within the natural limits imposed on us by the size of our planet while still affirming basic human rights and dignities? I have been teaching in my Our Father’s World Seminars for several years now that a)coercive government actions do not work but b)policies that provide health, education and empowerment for women do work, and so I was pleased to find my position affirmed by a recent story from the Times of India.
The story itself is an acknowledgment that for the most part population control policies in India have been an abysmal failure – but in that description of gloom and doom the journalist finds one very bright spot in the southern state of Kerala:
In 1979, China’s total fertility rate was 2.8, while Kerala’s was 3. By 2007, 28 years after it forced a coercive one-child policy on its people, China’s fertility rate stood at 1.7. Kerala reached the same figure but without treating its people like laboratory rats. Its success stands on the three ‘E’ pillars: Education, Employment, Equality. On the ground, Kerala’s three Es translate into a high literacy rate, regular income for families and more confident women.
For reference, a population rate of 1.7 is overdoing it slightly – the normally accepted ‘replacement’ fertility rate is 2.1 children per woman. (It might also be worth noting – though I cannot claim to have investigated or confirm the connection – that Kerala is home to many of the Christians who live in India.)
What is the lesson here? Quite simply, it is possible to achieve population balance (and environmental balance in other ways) and still treat people with love and dignity. One of my proverbs runs like this: “If it’s good for the environment, it will be good for community (and for people); and if its good for community (and for people), it’s probably good for the environment.”
This is the kind of environmental ethic we need to strive for – and it is the reason I teach and promote Christian environmental stewardship: I frankly don’t believe we can find the balance between people and God’s creation anywhere else.
Your thoughts?
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Tags: community, India, population
By Jan Davis, July 31, 2009 @ 10:16 am
Ed, we’re currently having conversations with our Haitian friends about very similar issues, so your blog was quite relevant to our discussions.
By TTCUSM, March 24, 2010 @ 4:54 pm
Dear Ed,
You wrote “It might also be worth noting… that Kerala is home to many of the Christians who live in India.”
According to Wikipedia, 56% of Kerala’s population is Hindu.
Unlike Hindus from other parts of India, Keralite Hindus live in a matriarchal society.
The high status of women is one of the reasons behind the success of Kerala’s population program.