High Time RSS Stopped Milking What It Calls the 'Demographic Disbalance' Issue

Importantly, Bhagwat did not sound his latest clarion call about having three children from a ‘neutral’ platform.

RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat addressing an RSS gathering in Nagpur. Image used for representation only.

(Photo: PTI)

The recent prod by the Sarsanghchalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Mohan Bhagwat, to Indian couples to have at least three children, marks a not-so-subtle modification, politically, in how this ideological fountainhead views the country’s population imbroglio.

Paradoxically, it also underscores that the Sangh Parivar continues viewing women as a baby-producing community with little rights of their own to make their choices on reproductive matters.

Bhagwat’s call, without taking into account the demographic implications of increasing population growth after reaching a reasonably lower total fertility rate (TFR), also lays an inadequate understanding, to say the least, of the economic challenges faced by Indian families who are not a part of the nation’s minuscule financial elite.

If the RSS chief’s proposition is taken forward by it or any of its affiliates, especially the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the current Union government, we are likely to witness an alteration in how the Sangh Parivar has so far ‘milked’ the issue of what it calls ‘demographic disbalance’, i.e., the differential in the TFRs of Hindus and Muslims.

The divergent population growth rates of Hindus and Muslims have been, over decades, consistently stripped of its historical backdrop. Demographic factors have been overlooked before spreading canards regarding the existence of a pan-Islamist ‘conspiracy’ to reduce Hindus to minority status in ‘their own country’ (as if this country is modelled like a Hindu Pakistan).

Importantly, Bhagwat did not sound his latest clarion call from a ‘neutral’ platform. Instead, the occasion for his speech in Nagpur was a session of the RSS organised Kathale Kul Sammelan, a congregation of families associated with the Kathale clan.

As part of a series of events to mark its centenary year, the RSS has embarked on a panch parivartan (five-pronged programmatic alterations), pursued throughout the year for the ‘benefit’ of society.

Among the five modifications or adjustments is kutumb prabodhan (family enlightenment) wherein a campaign has been launched to ensure that people preserve traditional family values and that these do not get diluted under pressure from social and economic liberalisation.

It is a paradox that Bhagwat pitched for a new three-child norm from a platform where old and traditional values are being sought to be reinforced. But, in Bhagwat’s suo motu directive, there are contradictions that are barely comprehensible.

To begin with, according to current estimates of sources within the RSS fraternity, adept on issues related to the demography from the perspective of the Sangh, almost every caste in Hindu society has reached the TFR of 2.1, whereas among Muslims this is now estimated to be at 2.6.

This divergence has been repeatedly highlighted to add to several prejudices and disinformation. Like Hindu women, Muslim women too are treated merely as appendages of the men within the community and not considered as those who have to carry the burden of increased motherhood.

Instead, Muslim women are projected as willing participants in a ‘game of one-upmanship’ against Hindus by birthing more children. This goes against the charade of being ‘considerate’ towards Muslim women on issues like instantaneous divorce.

Normally, the RSS chief’s suggestions are considered as being directed at Hindus. It can be thereby presumed that when the RSS chief preached for three children per couple, he was reaching out to members of the community so that the difference in population growth with Muslims could be neutralised and that it becomes closer than the prevailing divergence, if not exactly the same.

But, till the time India has democratic laws, such instructions cannot be issued only for one section or community. It is true that some BJP-ruled states and overzealous Chief Ministers have threatened, for several years, to introduce a population control law that prohibits people with more than two children from receiving government benefits and positions. This would add to existing laws in several states.

In the event of these half-baked suggestions and ‘threats’ becoming law in different states, and if Bhagwat’s suggestion is followed up by any couple, they would not just violate the new law but also get deprived of various government benefits and standard privileges.

It also must be recalled that, already, some state governments have begun rolling back the two-child norm. Recently, Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu announced his intention to introduce legislation permitting only those with more than two children to contest local body elections. Previously, he scrapped the rule barring those with more than two children, from contesting local body polls in Andhra Pradesh.

While delinking democratic rights – to contest elections, for instance, from the number of children is welcome, barring them on the same but inverted grounds makes the same mistakes that Bhagwat does – not keeping women in the epicentre of the debate of how many children to give birth to.

India has employed coercive measures as part of its population control policies for several decades. Forced sterilisation remains part of collective memory even now and the BJP should be wary of introducing mutated ways of penalising or discriminating against people with more than two children.

Bhagwat’s suggestion, instead of being followed by the BJP and government, must initiate ways to look at forthcoming demographic challenges and formulate a new population policy. It is almost a quarter of a century since India’s last population policy was formulated in 2000, when the NDA’s second government was at the helm of affairs with Atal Bihari Vajpayee as Prime Minister.

Bhagwat too, instead of floating such ideas, without (probably) any expert-backed deliberations within the RSS, must first rescind the organisation’s October 2015 contentious resolution on the subject.

It flagged “vast differences in growth rates of different religious groups” as resulting in “religious imbalance of the population ratio” which had the potential to jeopardise the “unity, integrity and cultural identity of the country.”

It is well past the time for the RSS to abandon its politics of dog whistles, and certainly with respect to disparities in population growth on the basis of religious identity.

The latest data available establishes that even though the TFR among Muslims remains higher than in other communities, its decline is faster compared to those communities as well.

Population, its growth rate and decline are serious matters that require serious scrutiny with a politically inclusive perspective. Unfortunately in India, this issue has been part of electoral and political rhetoric. Such usage, aimed to ceaselessly enlist the majoritarian voter base must end. 

The question is whether the Sangh Parivar puts a full stop on this and backs in letter and spirit, its own government’s affidavit of December 2020 in the Supreme Court.

In that, it was stated that the Centre was "unequivocally against coercion in family planning" and that India's family welfare programme is “voluntary in nature, which enables couples to decide [the] size of their family and adopt family planning methods... without any compulsion.”

Several BJP-ruled states in India have laws that bar citizens from contesting local polls if they have more than two children. To begin with, Bhagwat and the Centre (as a follow-up on its affidavit) could goad these state governments to annul these rules and laws.

Naidu has already pledged to do this and other CMs should be directed to follow in his footsteps. And, Bhagwat may well direct the current RSS ‘favourite’ Yogi Adityanath to junk his plans.

(The writer is an author and journalist based in Delhi-NCR. His latest book is 'The Demolition, The Verdict and The Temple: The Definitive Book on the Ram Mandir Project, and he's also the author of 'Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times'. His X handle is @NilanjanUdwin.)