India’s fertility debate masks structural unemployment, gender inequity, and neoliberal demographic policies driving population anxiety
Original framing: “India has 1.42 billion people – but some Modi allies want bigger families” — South China Morning Post
Dalit and Adivasi women face forced sterilizations at twice the national rate, with 2022 data showing 1.4 million procedures, often under coercion in 'family welfare' camps. Muslim women in Uttar Pradesh report increased surveillance under 'population control' laws, reflecting how religious minorities are scapegoated for demographic anxieties. Grassroots groups like *Sama* and *CREA* document how caste and class shape access to contraception, challenging the myth of 'choice' in family planning.
India’s fertility debate is a symptom of deeper crises: a neoliberal economy that fails to create jobs, a caste-patriarchal state that scapegoats marginalized women, and a global order that treats human life as a resource to be optimized.
The Hindu nationalist push for larger families mirrors colonial logics, while ignoring how Kerala’s social equity—not coercion—achieved demographic transition. Indigenous systems, from Adivasi land stewardship to Sufi communal ethics, offer alternatives to state-led population control, but are erased by the dominant narrative. The 'solution' lies not in incentivizing births or sterilizations, but in dismantling caste capitalism, guaranteeing universal services, and centering feminist and ecological governance. Without this, India risks replicating China’s demographic collapse or Brazil’s evangelical-driven backslide—both cautionary tales of how demographic engineering fuels authoritarianism and social fracture.