For population control, India is eyeing China’s one-child policy – but some see Hindu nationalism at work

Assam is the latest state to deprive citizens with more than two children of basic rights such as working in government jobs

Analysts say such policies are aimed at emulating Beijing’s curbs, which are seen as putting it on the path to prosperity – but there is also allegedly an anti-Muslim angle

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Kashmiri Muslims pray at an Islamic shrine in Srinagar, India, earlier this month. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 9:00am, 22 Dec 2020Updated: 9:16am, 22 Dec 2020

Shrabonti Saikia, a resident of India’s northeastern state of Assam, was widowed last year when her husband died in a car crash. The 36-year-old unemployed mother of three suddenly found herself staring at a bleak future. Unlike some other Indian states, which allow widows to work in government jobs, Assam recently approved a two-child policy that bars those with three or more kids from taking up such work, with effect from January.

“A government job would have made us financially secure,” Saikia said. “Instead, I’ve had to beg and borrow money from relatives to open a tailoring shop. We’re barely scraping through as there’s hardly any money left after repaying my monthly shop loan.”

Like Assam, many other Indian states have also imposed a two-child policy, which deprives citizens with more than two children of basic rights such as running in political elections, accessing bank loans and receiving free rations, among others. Such regulations have gained traction throughout the country since the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) assumed power in 2014, although the national government has not yet enacted such a law.

Analysts say there are two main motivations for the policies: first, an attempt to emulate China’s one-child model, which some believe paved that country’s path to prosperity; but, more importantly, an anti-Muslim angle, some claim, that feeds demands for such curbs.

“People who raise such demands equate population control with culling the Muslim population, even though there’s no proof that Indian Muslims have larger families than Hindus,” said Kavita Krishnan, a New Delhi-based activist focused on social issues. “This narrative is deeply divisive and is part of the government’s agenda to persecute the community.”

The issue grabbed headlines earlier this month when the government responded to public-interest litigation (PIL) filed by BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay. PIL refers to legal practices undertaken to help poor or marginalised people, or to effect change in social policies in the public interest.

Upadhyay, a lawyer, had pleaded that India urgently needed “a population-control law, based on the model of China … to have good health; social, economic and political justice; liberty of thoughts, expression and belief, faith and worship; and equality of status and opportunity”.

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