The provisional 2011 census data released on Thursday reinforces our status as the world’s most populous nation after China, but it’s now clear the gap has closed so much that the two Asian giants can almost be treated as a joint number one. While China’s population is 1.35 billion, we have just learnt we are now 1.21 billion. On income and development indices, however, India is so far behind China that our policymakers must innovate desperately — and implement policy efficiently — if this country is to have the chance to convert its huge population into an impressive human resource.

This essentially boils down to crafting policy, and inducing the means, to ensure food, shelter, education, health and training for around 40 per cent of our people in an environment in which the economic infrastructure is rapidly expanded (so that healthy, well-trained people can make a contribution to the national economy). It is not just a question of matching China. The Chinese example is cited to show that very large populations can be a national asset, and not a curse — as the traditional view has it. The question is really one of bringing comfort to our own people. This is what the principle of inclusive growth, which our leaders so routinely pay lip service to, mandates. The task is humongous. If we are not equal to it, all the talk over the past decade about India’s international power status will be mocked at — by our own people and the rest of the world.
Thankfully, the decadal population growth has slowed down. In 2001-2011, the rise was 181 million (increase of 17.6 per cent). With the exception of 1911-21 (nearly a century ago), this is the first time the population grew less than in the previous decade. This is fortunate, or the aggregate of development tasks would be an even greater challenge.
The conventional theory is that population numbers are prone to decline when the level of economic well-being rises (and there are no other strong factors like war, mass migration or comprehensive famine). So we can give ourselves a small pat on the back. Despite our blundering ways, we must have done a few things right. But beware: we have not set the stage for a celebration. But it is just conceivable that we may be in the takeoff stage on the trajectory of self-sustained growth. That, however, won’t happen if we can’t successfully address the kind of problems that people like the Maoists seek to bring to our attention every day through their violent acts. Really, if intense and cooperative national effort can be mounted to pull up laggard states like UP and Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, MP and Chhattisgarh by their bootstraps, we should be home and dry in the next 10-15 years. Sympathetic policy — appealing to market and non-market institutions and structures — and the right political and social environment must be espoused and supported by the national and state-level leaderships. Anything which divides or denigrates ordinary people must be out of the window.
To our shame, this census also shows the decline in the child sex ratio (the number of girls for every 1,000 boys in the 0-6 age group) has been the worst in a long time, and that this declining trend has taken hold over half a century (since 1961). Some of the disturbing data comes from relatively prosperous states like Punjab, Haryana and Tamil Nadu. Instead of being tempted to blame this on our feudal gene, we as a society need to seek answers. If the prejudicial trend persists, we run the risk of becoming an unenlightened society and, finally, a sub-optimal population.