With reference to the article, "Analysing India's demographic bomb" by Saurabh Mukherjea and Ritika Mankar-Mukherjee, India certainly has an advantage over other countries, including China, in terms of a younger population. This is the main reason for China to rethink its one-child policy. Resource-scarce Indian states in the north need to invest huge sums for providing amenities such as water, education, technological skills, sanitation, health care, electricity, housing, transport and other facilities. If not, the demographic dividend will be illusory.
On literacy, the Hindi media might be booming but everyone wants to learn English. Even the poor and the illiterate know that English is the key for better jobs. The northern states should shed their bias against English.
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Demographers note that states with a fertility level higher than the national average of 2.3 are those where Hindi is the dominant language. Southern states where Hindi is not the language of the masses have a fertility level of 2.1 or lower. This implies the Hindi-dominant states are increasingly forming a larger proportion of the population of India, leading to a widening representational gap between the states and therefore, power and resource distribution. The better developed South will lose out on resource allocation based on population statistics.
Also, the population growth rate among the Muslim community residing in south India is lower than that of the Hindus living in the upper and middle Gangetic plains.
Demographic anxieties such as these cannot be wished away in a pluralistic nation such as India. Signs of a slow but real shift in demography and consequently, power and financial equations, are already looming. The influx of large numbers of people from the north to the south in search of jobs and careers is causing local unease. Such anxieties can lead to unhappy majoritarian politics. The key to integration is literacy and economic uplift. Hindi-dominant states need to take the lead in this to make the demographic dividend meaningful.
H N Ramakrishna, Bengaluru
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