Patronisingly High On Concerns, Sadly Low On Clarity

As the new Population Policy document is translated into action on the ground, it is the right time to scrutinise it and offer some suggestions, says Alaka Malwade Basu

A Population Commission with some hundred members and chaired by a very busy Prime Minister has recently been constituted. But a population policy document had already been prepared and ratified by Parliament. As this document is now translated into action on the ground, it is perhaps the right time to scrutinise it more carefully and offer some suggestions.

This is not easy, because at one level the policy document has managed to sidestep criticism by saying everything that any lobby or constituency would expect it to say. It first acknowledges the concerns of the population-control establishment that there is an urgent need to bring down birth rates.

 

It then goes on to make largely politically correct recommendations for policy by focussing on the questions of satisfying the still large unmet need for contraception, intensifying efforts to improve reproductive health and to empower women in general. It also seeks to do all this by encouraging, indeed demanding, local decision-making and local implementation. The document also details the operational measures that would meet these varied goals.

But saying too much can sometimes be as much of a problem as saying too little. This policy document is so dense with suggestions and so keen to please the new international mood on population matters, that it often lacks focus. The first thing it needs therefore is ruthless copy-editing to reduce its repetitiveness and improve its clarity.

To give an example of low clarity, it is not at all clear what kind of