Abstract
‘Family planning’ in the sense of an individual couple’s conscious thought and actions regarding regulation of family size and reproductive behaviour has perhaps always existed in the history of human civilisation. But ‘family planning programme’ (hereafter FPP for short) as a state-level initiative and policy intervention towards lowering a country’s overall birth rate is relatively new, and it is indeed a post-World War phenomenon restricted mainly to the developing world.
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- 1.
See Freedman, R. (1990), ‘Family planning programs in the third world’, Special issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol.510; Phillips, J. and Ross, J.A. (eds) (1992), Family Planning Programmes and Fertility, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Bongaarts, J. (1993), ‘The Fertility Impact of Family Planning Programs’, Working Paper No.47, New York: The Population Council; Bongaarts, J. (1994), ‘Population Policy options in the developing world’, Science, 263,5,148:771-776p; Bongaarts, J. (1995), ‘The Role of Family Planning Programs in Contemporary Fertility Transitions’, Research Division Working Paper No. 71, The Population Council; Bongaarts, J. (1997), ‘The role of family planning programmes in contemporary fertility transitions’, in Jones, G.W., Caldwell, J. Douglas, R.M., and D'Souza, R.M. (eds): The Continuing Demographic Transition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, among others.
- 2.
Reasons for not using contraception include a false fear of side effects of modern methods, inability to afford the cost of contraception, or even general ignorance and inaccessibility of the contraceptive methods.
- 3.
It is important not to equate this 'functional approach' with what Amartya Sen calls ‘override’ approach, which advocates not only an overriding priority to FPP essentially at the immediate neglect of other important social commitments (e.g. education, health and social security), but it often tends to recommend the use of some form of force (e.g. depriving those with large family of various state benefits and civil rights) and coercion (e.g. China's one child policy) if necessary for a drastic reduction of population growth; see Sen, A. 1994, ‘Population: Delusion and Reality’, New York Review of Books, September, pp. 63-65. This ‘functional approach’ differs also from what is sometimes branded as ‘conventional wisdom on family planning programs’, which in Paul Kennedy's words is that 'the only practical way to ensure a decrease in fertility rates and thus in population growth, is to introduce cheap and reliable forms of birth control' (quoted in Pritchett, L.H. (1994), ‘Desired Fertility and Impact of Population Policies’, Population and Development Review, 20(1), p 39).
- 4.
See e.g. Sen, A. (1995), ‘Population Policy: Authoritarian Versus Cooperation’, Development Economics Discussion Paper No. 63, STICERD, London School of Economics; Sen, A. 1994, op.cit.; Pritchett 1994, op.cit.; Drèze, J. and Murthi, M. 2000, ‘Fertility, Education and Development’, The Development Economics Discussion Paper Series, No.20, STICERD, London School of Economics.
- 5.
See e.g. Drèze, J. and Murthi, M. 2000, ‘Fertility, Education and Development’, The Development Economics Discussion Paper Series, No.20, STICERD, London School of Economics; Drèze, J. and Sen, A. (1995), India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Bulato , R. A. and Lee, R.D. (1983), ‘An overview of fertility determinants in developing countries’ in Bulato, R.A. and Lee, R.D. (eds) 1983, Determinants of Fertility in Developing Countries, New York: Academic Press; Schultz, T.P. 1997, ‘Demand for Children in Low Income Countries’, in Rosenzweig, M.R. and Stark, O. (eds) 1997, Handbook of Population and Family Economics, Amsterdam: Elsevier Science B.V.; and Caldwell, J. (1980), ‘Mass education as determinant of the timing of fertility decline’, Population and Development Review, 6(2):225-255.
- 6.
Under such stagnating socioeconomic conditions, together with growing landlessness and population densities following overall mortality improvement, a broad-based FPP can contribute substantially to meeting up poor peoples' 'poverty induced' demand for fertility reduction (e.g. Basu, A. 1986, ‘Birth Control by Assetless Workers in Kerala: On the possibility of a poverty induced fertility transition’, Development and Change, 17:263-282; and Kabeer, N. 1994, ‘Re-Examining the ‘Demand for Children’ Hypothesis in the Context of Fertility Decline in Bangladesh’, Working Paper No. 94.6, Centre For Development Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.
- 7.
There have been some sporadic attempts at casting doubt on this widely acclaimed success story of Bangladesh’s FPP in a somewhat ‘challenging environment’; see e.g. Das Gupta, M. and Narayana, D. (1997), ‘Bangladesh’s Fertility Decline from A Regional Perspective’, Genus, no.3-4:101-128; Caldwell, J., Barkat-E-Khuda, Caldwell, B., Pieris, I., and Caldwell, P. (1999), ‘The Bangladesh Fertility Decline: An Interpretation’, Population and Development Review, 25(1).
- 8.
In fact Bangladesh has experienced somewhat less social development, especially in education and health, than India between 1970 and 1995 (see Das Gupta and Narayana 1997, op.cit. 112-14).
- 9.
See Caldwell, J. (1998), ‘Malthus and the Less Developed World: The Pivotal Role of India’, Population and Development Review, 24(4):675-696; and Krishnaji, N. (1998), ‘Population Policy’ in T. Byres (ed): The Indian Economy: Major Debates Since Independence, Delhi: Oxford University Press for discussions on Malthusian influences on Indian population thought and policy.
- 10.
One can hardly come across a single piece of published article on India's FPP or population policy that has not cared to mention about India’s distinction of being the first country in adopting a state-run FPP. It would not be totally unjustified to apprehend that this immensely repeated mention of India’s this distinction (as a first-comer in population control movement) might have produced a complacency of a magnitude which has ultimately helped prevent an adequately critical and objective assessments of India’s performance in the front of population control.
- 11.
The persistence of a divided mind on the population question among official circles can be testified even by a few following sentences from Visaria and Chari's 1998 paper: 1) ‘The Planning Commission that was bold enough to make India a pioneer in the field of population policy in 1951 was hesitant in its approach’ (p.58); 2) ‘Prime Minister Nehru himself felt confident about supporting an even bigger population, provided production increased. Yet, he wanted population growth to be "restricted"’ (p.58) (e.g. Krishnaji 1998 op.cit, and Visaria, P. and Chari, V. (1998), India’s Population Policy and Family Planning Programme: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. In: A. Jain (ed) (1998), Do Population Policies Matter?, New York: Population Council).
- 12.
For instance, faced with official record of relatively meagre spontaneous/voluntary acceptance of FPP in combination with a stubborn angularity of assuming perfect rationality and self-maximising perception even among illiterate masses, the official view and strategy could at best oscillate between coercion and meagre allocation for FPP, until recently when these faulty official perceptions and dominant myths have begun to crumble against the mounting attack and criticism - both from outside and within the country.
- 13.
See, for a useful discussion on the evolution of Bangladesh’s FPP vis-a-vis India's, Kamal, Nahid (1999), Population Trajectories of West and East Bengal During the Twentieth Century, (Ph.D. dissertation in progress) at the London School of Economics and Political Science, London.
- 14.
See Kamal 1999, op.cit. 24.
- 15.
In fact several recent studies have shown that motivational programmes (e.g. health workers visiting households on a regular basis and making contacts and discussing about contraceptive use) appear quite (and indeed more than the cash incentive schemes) effective in promoting contraceptive use, especially temporary and spacing methods among rural illiterate women (e.g. Sunil, T.S., Pillai, V.K., and Pandey, A. (1999), ‘Do incentives matter? Evaluation of a Family Programme in India’, Population Research and Policy Review, 18:563–577). It should be noted here that Bangladesh’s success story on FPP seems to have followed precisely from this kind of practical perception that assigns crucial importance to motivational efforts in a context of mass illiteracy and ignorance.
- 16.
see footnote 14
- 17.
See Chaurasia A. R. (2006), ‘Fertility Transition in India 1985-2003’, (mimeo), Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi.
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Maharatna, A. (2013). India’s Family Planning Programme: A Muddle Extraordinary. In: India’s Perception, Society, and Development. Springer, India. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-1017-7_8
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