Soma Basu

MADURAI, Tamil Nadu, Jul 10 2008 (IPS) – Ponni, 27, lay quiet on a missionary hospital bed in this small town, groggy from the anaesthetic administered to her for a caesarean delivery a couple of hours earlier.
By her side were no female attendants, a departure from the norm in India where the paternal or maternal grandmother is usually on hand to greet the newborn.

Instead, Ponni s husband, Sakthi, sat by the bedside patiently waiting for her to wake up and hold their first baby, a daughter.

Both Ponni and Sakthi are government employees, leading ordinary lives in this conservative town famous for its Hindu temples. What set them apart from the thousands of other couples in the town was their rather unusual decision to limit the size of their family to one child even if that child was a girl.

It was an extraordinary request made by the husband while his wife was still in the labour room. He wanted us to perform a tubectomy on her despite her youth. He told us he was not bothered whether his wife gave birth to a son or a daughter, but planned to lead a contented life with a small family, explained one of the doctors.

Ponni s expected date of delivery happened to fall on Jul. 11, World Population Day prompting Sakthi, with the consent of his wife, to decide that he would not add to the population explosion. Their daughter was born five days early but the young man with his unconventional thinking walked straight into the hearts of many people.
Related IPS Articles

The staff commended him for his bold decision to go against the established son-centric societal norms. The Madurai chapter of the Family Planning Association of India (FPAI) promptly presented the couple as agents of change.

Established in 1949, FPAI is India s leading and largest reproductive and sexual health organisation. It provides a wide range of services in sexual and reproductive health and works closely with the government and NGOs.

Statistically speaking, Sakthi and Ponni are among two dozen-odd couples in the Madurai that, over the past six months, have undertaken family planning measures after the birth of their first baby, said FPAI branch manager Louis Paulraj. With better access to family planning and sustained awareness programmes people are regularly opting to have small families, he told IPS.

What was important with Ponni and Sakthi was that their decision to limit the family to one child was not influenced by the gender of the newborn. They were willing to risk the displeasure of extended families, always waiting expectantly to hear news of the arrival of male heirs.

And that was why nobody came to share the joys of new parenthood with Ponni and Sakthi. Ponni s mother-in-law was furious that she not only failed to beget a son but had also agreed to curtail the size of her family. Her mother thought the decision unwise and predicted an unhappy old age for Ponni as she would not then have a son to take care of her.

The choice is increasingly getting narrowed down between whether you want to lead a quality life with your only child or you want to multiply your progeny and then share and suffer the burden of a heavily constrained life, says Selvi, 24, the mother of a six-month-old boy. She too had gone in for a contraceptive surgical procedure earlier this year.

I have heard about the population explosion. But with changing lifestyles, soaring ambitions and spiraling prices, it is not just possible to provide the best for two or more children if you happen to be ordinary, salaried class people, Selvi said.

Says Sudhakar, a bank employee: Every year I spend around Rs 30,000 (750 US dollars) on my daughter who studies in the first grade in a reputed school. I can afford it because I have decided to have one child and give her the best.

Paulraj claims that small family norms are catching up fast in small towns like Madurai. From January 2008 till date, 57 percent of 2,133 mothers preferred family planning after two children. Roughly one percent of the mothers opted for the same soon after their first childbirth.

Tamil Nadu is credited with reducing its birth rate and not contributing to India s population explosion. The crude birth rate was down to 16.6 in 2005 from 19.2 in 2000. Last year it further fell to 15 per 1,000, prompting the state government to set itself the goal of population stabilisation by 2010. It is projected that the population of Tamil Nadu will stabilise at 70 million, enabling the state to maintain its lead in the implementation of family welfare, maternal and child health programmes.

Incidentally, assuming the highest level of fertility, the future population growth prepared by the Registrar General of India also shows decreasing growth rates: from 1.8 percent in 2001 to 1.3 percent in 2011, and 0.9 percent in 2021. These rates of growth will bring India s population the world s second largest after China s to 1.2 billion in 2011 and 1.3 billion in 2021.

According to U.N. projections by 2010 China s population will stand at 1.4 billion. India s population, according to U.N. projections may stabilise at around 1.7 billion by 2060.

Population growth has long been a prime governmental concern in India. The National Family Welfare Programme launched in 1951 with the objective of reducing the birth rate to stabilise the population and help national economy allowed India to proclaim one of the earliest national, government-sponsored family planning efforts in the developing world.

Implicitly, the government has believed that India can repeat the experience of developed nations where industrialisation and a rise in the standard of living has been accompanied by a drop in the population growth rate. Although the Indian government s family planning programmes ran into opposition initially, especially in the rural areas, people are now beginning to see real advantages in having smaller families. Studies have found that an increasing number of couples now regard family planning positively.

But there are gaps that remain to be plugged. A strong preference for sons is a deeply held cultural ideal that is based on economic roots. Sons assist with farm labour as they grow, provide labour in times of illness and unemployment, serve as their parents only security in old age and ritually officiate at funerals.

Surveys carried out by the New Delhi-based Operations Research Group (ORG) indicate that 68 percent of rural parents continue to have children until at least two sons are born.

Though India s fertility rates are said to be on the decline, providing effective reproductive health information and services in the villages, trying to involve men and providing non-agricultural jobs in certain states should help fertility rates drop further and faster, say population experts.

Better contraception, delayed childbearing, more women in the work force and the widespread migration from rural to urban areas have all played a role. And so have public awareness campaigns as was clearly the case with Sakthi and Ponni.