Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath recently introduced the Population Control Bill. Following this, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has written a letter to the Uttar Pradesh State Law Commission to request removal of the one-child norm from the draft Bill.
One-Child Norm To Bring Imbalance To The Society; VHP
In a two page letter, the VHP said that they agree to the objectives of the draft Bill. But there are certain sections in the bill that need to be reconsidered as they are suggestive of going beyond the objectives.
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The organisation said that the one-child policy in the draft could lead to imbalance between the communities and its contraction with the population. VHP’s working President Alok Kumar in the letter said the Bill is supposed to stabilise the population and promote the two-child norm policy. However, sections 5, 6(2) and 7 of the Bill which talk about incentivising the public servants and others to have only one child in the family go beyond the objectives stated.
VHP States Social and Economical Consequences of One-Child Norm
In the letter, they further urged the UP government to remove the same as it would lead to an imbalance in the society. The letter suggested that the policy aiming at an average of less than 2 children per woman would lead to contraction in the population. This in turn has many negative social and economic consequences.
They said with the one-child policy, in the long run there would come a time when there is only one working adult to look after 2 parents and 4 grandparents. They further cited the example of China where it wasn’t applied to more than half of the prospective parents and was eventually withdrawn.
The letter said that the policy needs to be tailored to redress the imbalance otherwise the one-child policy may end up doing the opposite.
The VHP further sought attention towards the Total Fertility Rate (TFR). The Bill stated an objective to bring it down to 1.7.
