Vijay Kumar Gaba

Notably, China has reportedly recorded a decline in population in the year 2022, as compared to the previous year. This could possibly be due to Covid related restrictions and deaths, but there is no denial that Chinese population growth has been plateauing for a few years, forcing the government to shed its legacy ‘One Child’ policy and encouraging people to have more children. In respect of India, the official data is not available as no official Census has been conducted since 2011. The data is therefore based on various estimates and extrapolations.

Interestingly, The Diplomat, reported that “India’s population has consistently been undercounted. For example, India’s last census, held in 2011, missed 27.85 million people. On the other hand, China has obfuscated its population decline for many years. Yi Fuxian, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Time magazine that “China’s population began to decline 9-10 years earlier than Chinese officials and U.N. projections, meaning that China’s real demographic crisis is beyond imagination…””

China has however downplayed the demographic concerns. Speaking to the media, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin emphasized that "when assessing a country's demographic dividend, we need to look at not just the size but also the quality of its population; size matters, but what matters more is talent resource. Nearly 900 million out of the 1.4 billion Chinese are of working age and on average have received 10.9 years of education.”

Notwithstanding the statistical argument and the Chinese view, I have always emphasized on the need to focus on demographic accountability also, while accounting for the demographic dividend. No demographic dividend could accrue to us if we fail to give equal importance to demographic accountability also.

If I may reiterate, what I have been saying for the past many years.

Numerous fables have been narrated to eulogize the demographic characteristics of India. Many themes and strategies have been built around the young demographic profile of 1.25bn Indians. Almost all these stories and strategies recognize the young Indian as a great opportunity - "Demographic dividend" for the Indian economy. I have however not come across any presentation that classifies this demographic profile as the solemn accountability and responsibility of India to the world.

The global community has always valued resource rich nations and expected them to behave in a responsible manner to preserve the global order. The capital rich western world has been expected to help the poor and starved of the world. The world looked forward to them to fund technological advancement, preservation of cultural heritage, assisting global growth and development. Even after taking full cognizance of the allegations of imperialism and suppression, I believe that financially rich communities have worked for the betterment of human life by funding technological innovation, life science research & development, productivity enhancement, and development assistance to the economically lagging world.

Similarly, nations rich in natural resources like minerals etc. have been expected to prospect and exploit these resources in optimum manner to assist the sustenance and growth of the global economy.

The point is that since India now possesses the largest pool of prospective workers for the world, should it not be the responsibility of the government to prospect, grow, and develop this resource for the benefit of the global community!

This is even more pertinent in the context of the current global financial conditions. In places like Europe and Japan the root cause of the crisis could be traced to the aging demographic profile. China is also likely to join the club soon. Under the circumstances it is the responsibility of India to provide educated, skilled and trained workforce to the global economy.

A number of research papers and surveys have shown that (a) Child and mother nutrition level in India is sub-standard consequently child mortality rates are poor; (b) higher and professional education standards are extremely poor consequently a large number of Indian graduates are unemployable even in routine jobs; (c) There is acute shortage of competent scientists to scale up research and development (R&T) activities to make Indian businesses competitive at global stage.

"Skill India" and "Make in India" are noble ideas for human resource development. But we need to make sure that these do not end up prospecting and developing only blue collar low skilled workers. In that case India will not only fail in its responsibility to the global community but also slither back into the lower orbit of economic development like in 1950-80.