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A decade ago I traveled shoestring over India and spent time in a lot of rural areas. In the north (especially Uttar Pradesh) I was overwhelmed by the overpopul
by Mediterraneo10 8y ago
A decade ago I traveled shoestring over India and spent time in a lot of rural areas. In the north (especially Uttar Pradesh) I was overwhelmed by the overpopulation. When I mentioned this to middle-class Indians as a problem for the country, they generally didn’t agree that it was a problem. Some would respond that a larger population surely equates to more global clout, so this was a way for India to grow strong and assert itself on the world stage. Sometimes they would accuse me of wanting to undermine India’s growth, since family-planning strategies were supposedly just a way for the West to keep the Third World down.
I wonder if this is still a common attitude now, ten years on, when environmentalism may have made more inroads among India’s middle class, and when everyone is suffering from the obvious effects of so large a population, like air pollution.
- rrrazdan 8y agoThis is completely opposite to my experience of living and growing up in India. Overpopulation is considered the root of almost every evil afflicting India. Poverty. Overpopulation. Corruption. Overpopulation. Poor health. Overpopulation.
- IA21 8y agoI'm curious to know how overpopulation causes corruption.
- newyankee 8y agoLiterally every educated person i know in India (excluding some religions) including me have worried about the impact of our population and consider it the root cause of most (if not) all of our problems. The problem is we do not get a voice in the narratives peddled by the media.
- umeshunni 8y agoIf Uttar Pradesh was a country, it would be the 4th most populous after China, India and the US.
- sseth 8y agoThey must have been pulling your leg. I have lived in India all my life, and the fraction of people who think overpopulation is not a problem, or who think it is a good thing, is vanishingly small. Note that the current rate of 2.3 has been reached from a high of 4.97 around 1975. SO regardless of what (some) Indians have told you, their actions speak otherwise!
- Mediterraneo10 8y agoNo, they weren’t pulling my leg. There are plenty of highly nationalist middle-class Hindus in India, as I’m sure even you have noticed from political waves.