India is a democracy and cannot afford to pursue an authoritarian policy on population control (Editorial page, “Having the last word on ‘population control’,” July 25). However, I feel India’s demographic dividend can be utilised only if the population growth does not outpace the growth of infrastructure. On the contrary, such growth will only add to the burden as far as public health and education are concerned and result in greater unemployment. Economic growth will be unequal too.

Divya Sharma,

Dehradun, Uttarakhand

A prominent feature of population control in India is that it has been achieved without coercive measures, examples of these measures being the Emergency phase or the rigorous norm of one-child per couple in China in the past. Voluntary efforts have been engendered by the spread of education as shown by the best total fertility rate (TFR) results in Kerala. Besides, greater awakening about the importance of small family among the poor seems to be growing. However, we do need to bring down the total fertility rate (TFR) even further, from 2.2. For this, education, health care and infrastructure have to be in tandem. There needs to be better awareness, quality education and more incentives for adhering to a small family.

Y.G. Chouksey,

Pune

Pockets of Indians across all religious denominations and economic brackets have been deriving direct and palpable benefits by adopting ‘small family norms’, as seen in terms of overall prosperity, quality of life and better rankings in the social indices of these nuclear units. But population as an asset is not a theory that India can afford to buy. It may not be an exaggeration that all the progress achieved in the 70 years of Independence has been overshadowed by an unbridled population explosion. We do not need a rocket scientist to tell us that excess population is India’s bane. Let us not fight shy of the truth.

Sivamani Vasudevan,

Chennai