- population control

POPULATION CONTROL

Population control has been central to government policies right from the time of India’s independence. National and international policy makers used the bogey of overpopulation to explain many social ills — poverty, environmental degradation, high maternal mortality, etc. Consequently, the National Family Planning Programme aggressively sought to forcibly sterilise and/or ‘give incentives’ for people to use a plethora of contraceptives often unsuited for their health status. Despite lip service paid to women’s health and empowerment over the years and even at the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, little has changed. In fact since the post structural adjustment of the nineties, population control has become a written pre-conditionality for India.

From the 1980s, Saheli worked to bring together of a broad coalition of feminist and democratic rights groups demanding an end to such coercion. We have constantly highlighted that the crux of underdevelopment lies not in the numbers of people but rather, in the social inequities that prevail: unequal access to resources, education, water, health, food to name a few. It has been an uphill task to challenge the underpinnings of the population control theory and to highlight women’s concerns and problems. Our stand has been to oppose population policy as it has nothing but coercion in store for women and it applies as much to feminist population policy.

ARTICLES

POPULATION “EXPLOSION” - A MYTH OF EPIC PROPORTIONS

Newsletter May - Aug 2004

BHARATIYA POPULATION POLICY: Ek teer bahut nishane

Newsletter May - Aug 2004

THE GOVERNMENT’S NEW GIMMICK: PEOPLE’S PARTICIPATION IN FAMILY WELFARE PROGRAMME

Newsletter Apr 1996

POPULATION CONTROL: Extermination of People

Souvenir 1995

VICTIMS SPEAK OUT AGAINST COERCIVE POPULATION CONTROL

Newsletter Jan 1995

CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE NATIONAL POPULATION POLICY DRAFT