Is India really over populated?

[trackwhack]

Here guys is the ranking of the countries by Physiological Density of Population

What is Physiological Density?

The physiological density or real population density is the number of people per unit area of arable land.[1]

A higher physiological density suggests that the available agricultural land is being used by more and may reach its output limit sooner than a country that has a lower physiological density.

List of countries by real population density based on food growing capacity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So the countries in the list which have a worse Physiological Density than India but have a better standard of living than India are(Excluding the oil exporting countries)-

1. Singapore(this can be excluded as a case of being a small trade oriented country)
2. Iceland - 4229/sq.km of arable land
3. South Korea - 2998/sq.km of arable land
4. Taiwan - 2932/sq.km of arable land
5. Japan- 2924/sq.km of arable land
6. Netherlands- 2205//sq.km of arable land
7. Israel- 2147/sq.km of arable land
8. Columbia- 2064//sq.km of arable land
9. Switzerland - 1900/sq.km of arable land
10. Costa Rica -1803/sq.km of arable land
11. Malaysia - 1336/sq.km of arable land
12. Belgium- 1248/sq.km of arable land
13. Slovania - 1170/sq.km of arable land
14. United kingdom - 1077/sq.km of arable land
15. China - 943/sq.km of arable land
16. Liechestien - 843/sq.km of arable land
17. Luxumbourg - ~750//sq.km of arable land
18. Italy- ~750/sq.km of arable land

Note that, I have not included countries which I thought was insignificant or only marginally better than us like Indonesia, Srilanka(Which is better than us after a fukcing Civil war), Hong Kong etc, nor have I included the Oil exporters like Saudi, Kuwait, Qatar, Venezuela etc just to avoid the confounding variable.


So Now tell me why are we still whining about over population and giving it as an excuse when clearly, countries much more voer populated than us have succeeded much better?

All our ills are caused by misgovernance of 5 decades of CON(edit)d their misplaced socialism. Population was just a bogey to hide the incompetance of the Nehru clan and its shitty socialist policies. TO be frank, we would have sucked even if we had only a population of 2 crores instead of the present 125. But we can thrive even with 300 crore population if we utilize our potential to the maximum through capitalism.

@pmaitra @Sakal Gharelu Ustad @Bangalorean @parijataka @Ray @Razor @TrueSpirit1 @Cliff@sea @arkem8 @LurkerBaba

PS: I know this requires a lot of outside the box thinking and goes against the years of indoctrination against over population, but atleast give it a thought

High Arable Land in India is only indicative of very low forest cover. Its also an indicator of how many people you can feed. But its not an indicator of prosperity. Neither is it an indicator of potential prosperity. India's agricultural output in 400 billion dollars. Even if we raise it by five times over the next 20 years, it will still be a measly 2 trillion dollars compared with the then projected GDP of 10 trillion.

India's population is currently more a liability than a resource. Remember in 1947 our population was 300 million people. We just started humping like rabbits after that.

 

[Sakal Gharelu Ustad]

The Nehruvian socialism, for all its ills, gave India what India needed at that time the most.

India made great strides in healthcare, and life expectancy increased. India also made strides in food security. By the 80s, India has made great strides in these two areas, due to which, there was a population explosion. It is still happening.

What India could not do, and is impossible to achieve, is enforcing a one child or two children policy. It worked in PRC, which is why, they are better off than us. In a truly socialist-cum-authoritarian state, this would have been possible. India was socialist but free country, and such policies just wouldn't have worked.

We keep blaming the past, or blaming socialism, but have we ever seriously discussed what would have happened had we adopted a different approach to nation-building? We seem content with this quasi-national pastime of shifting the blame.

Yes, our population is a bane. To answer @Mad Indian, yes, it is a handicap for the country. Now, let's see what we can do going forward, instead of cribbing over the past.

I do not think China moved forward due to one child policy. It was the implementation of reforms.

About population being handicap. Yes, poor illiterate population is handicap in retrospect. But I think @Mad Indian referred to if it is the sole reason for all of India's problems as it is usually pointed out to be.

 

[TrueSpirit1]

High Arable Land in India is only indicative of very low forest cover. Its also an indicator of how many people you can feed. But its not an indicator of prosperity. Neither is it an indicator of potential prosperity. India's agricultural output in 400 billion dollars. Even if we raise it by five times over the next 20 years, it will still be a measly 2 trillion dollars compared with the then projected GDP of 10 trillion.

Not to mention, potential environmental catastrophe due to abated population growth, leading to the dreaded phenomena of "nature balancing itself".....catastrophe

Remember in 1947 our population was 300 million people. We just started humping like rabbits after that.

Not really....it is much simpler. Mortality rate took a quantum dip (as @pmaitra correctly indicated). Birth-rate did not.
Though, birth-rate has dipped amongst all lately, but not for the peaceful lot.

 

[jamesvaikom]

I do not think China moved forward due to one child policy. It was the implementation of reforms.

About population being handicap. Yes, poor illiterate population is handicap in retrospect. But I think @Mad Indian referred to if it is the sole reason for all of India's problems as it is usually pointed out to be.

This is not the sole problem. But if we control population growth then we can solve all other problems. If people have less children then they can spend more money for each children. This will help us to solve illiteracy and malnutrition problems. If we control population growth then we can reduce unemployment by creating less jobs. The main reason for low productivity is mechanization will reduce work force needed. But if we control population growth then people won't protest against mechanization. Middlemen is the reason for huge difference between whole sale and retail price. Govt. can't control middlemen due to unemployment problem. If we control population growth then we can control unemployment problem. This will help Govt. to control middlemen and price rise. Environmentalists are protesting against factories due to environmental problems. But the fact is in India consumption is causing more environmental problems than production. So if we control population growth then we can control consumption. This will help us control environmental problems without reducing production. Its difficult to construct factories and mines in densely populated places due to protests. But if we control population growth then we can control population density and then only less people will protest. Low population growth will help us reduce dependence on foreign countries for jobs and natural resources.

 

[pmaitra]

I do not think China moved forward due to one child policy. It was the implementation of reforms.

One child policy was part of the reforms. I do believe that policy helped in the overall scheme of things. Maybe we should ask our Chinese members to comment on that.


@t_co, @CCP, @amoy

About population being handicap. Yes, poor illiterate population is handicap in retrospect. But I think @Mad Indian referred to if it is the sole reason for all of India's problems as it is usually pointed out to be.

No, it is not the sole reason, but one of the many reasons.

 

[amoy]

Again I suggest u all use "family planning" rather than one-child policy

One-child policy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The one-child policy, officially the family planning policy,[1] is the population control policy of the People's Republic of China. Many demographers consider the term "one-child" a misnomer, as the policy allows many exceptions: for example, rural families may have a second child if the first child is a girl or is disabled and ethnic minorities are exempt. Families in which neither parent has siblings are also allowed to have two children.[2] Foreigners living in China and residents of the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau are also exempt from the policy. In 2007, approximately 35.9% of China's population was subject to the one-child restriction.[3] In November 2013, the Chinese government announced that it would further relax the policy by allowing families to have two children if one of the parents is an only child.[2][4]

What if China didn't implement that?

The policy was introduced in 1979 to alleviate social, economic, and environmental problems in China.[5] Demographers estimate that the policy averted 200 million births between 1979 and 2009.

I 'm of the opinion that the "planning" restriction is to be scrapped completely someday based on -
1) Birth control IMO is a contingency measure in face of drastic population growth vs. limited "resources" available in a given time frame, such as arable land, economy, employment, education, health care ... Therefore TEMPORARY, and to keep up with the times.
2) The restriction is indeed at the cost of certain "human rights" that China has been frequently under attack.
3) With advancement in urbanization, education, contraception awareness, etc. restriction becomes unnecessary, needless to mention demographic change.

Malthusianism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Neo-Malthusianism generally refers to people with the same basic concerns as Malthus, who advocate for population control programs, to ensure resources for current and future populations.[2] In Britain the term Malthusian can also refer more specifically to arguments made in favour of preventive birth control, hence organizations such as the Malthusian League.[4] Neo-Malthusians seem to differ from Malthus's theories mainly in their enthusiasm for contraceptive techniques. Malthus, as a devout Christian, believed that "self-control" (abstinence) was preferable to artificial birth control. In some editions of his essay, Malthus did allow that abstinence was unlikely to be effective on a wide scale, thus advocating the use of artificial means of birth control as a solution to population "pressure".[5] Modern "neo-Malthusians" are generally more concerned than Malthus was with environmental degradation and catastrophic famine than with poverty.

Many critics believe that the basis of Malthusian theory has been fundamentally discredited in the years since the publication of Principle of Population, often citing major advances in agricultural techniques and modern reductions in human fertility.[6] Many modern proponents believe that the basic concept of population growth eventually outstripping resources is still fundamentally valid, and "positive checks" are still likely in humanity's future if there is no action to curb population growth.[7][8]

Under India's circumstances, ideology aside, yours is a very decentralized governance, per my observation. Your states /pradesh (some ruled by regional parties) are more driven by local agenda or votebank politics rather than 10-year planning or beyond (Chinese birth control was introduced in 1979) ahd have a bigger say in policy formulating. Comparatively speaking your Central is weak thus any top-down policy be it birth control or FDI, is relatively difficult to enforce at local levels with consistency. Also religious resistance can be very strong in India.

 

[Mad Indian]

Nice article mate. I would like to point out a few things here.

First let me tell you that I think that India is really overpopulated.

Don`t believe me take a ride in a local train from Sealdah to Nadia during Dolyatra.

Anyway now on your analysis.

Have you observed one strange fact in all this rankings. If you go to the wiki link too will see the strange pattern there too.

A lot of the countries which are on the top rankings are small countries with a high HDI. They also have a lot of urban areas as their population is quite well off and do not live in villages. Quite naturally their small area,highly developed cities and non farming people would account for a great physiological density and their rankings are on the top.

Now for the case of ranks on physiological density itself. I think is a bit flawed. This is because the physiological density is being calculated on population/arable land. There is a big problem on that arable land. The fact is you are expecting that the growth of arable land of a small country to that of a large country would be uniform. However that is not true.The arable land percentage may vary too much.

Anyway you have made a few mistakes in the rankings. How can you make these gaping blunders.


Rankings
109. India
110. Italy
205. United States(~#!@^&*! This rank completely demolishes this article)
213. Russia(~#!%@)

Members pleas check from the link. Easiest way is to do Ctrl+F and type the name of the country.

List of countries by real population density based on food growing capacity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dude? Did you even read what I wrote. The list I gave are the countries which are significantly over populated and still have a better standard of living than us and that too without exporting oil

 

[Mad Indian]

Again I suggest u all use "family planning" rather than one-child policy

One-child policy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


What if China didn't implement that?


I 'm of the opinion that the "planning" restriction is to be scrapped completely someday based on -
1) Birth control IMO is a contingency measure in face of drastic population growth vs. limited "resources" available in a given time frame, such as arable land, economy, employment, education, health care ... Therefore TEMPORARY, and to keep up with the times.
2) The restriction is indeed at the cost of certain "human rights" that China has been frequently under attack.
3) With advancement in urbanization, education, contraception awareness, etc. restriction becomes unnecessary, needless to mention demographic change.

Malthusianism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Under India's circumstances, ideology aside, yours is a very decentralized governance, per my observation. Your states /pradesh (some ruled by regional parties) are more driven by local agenda or votebank politics rather than 10-year planning or beyond (Chinese birth control was introduced in 1979) ahd have a bigger say in policy formulating. Comparatively speaking your Central is weak thus any top-down policy be it birth control or FDI, is relatively difficult to enforce at local levels with consistency. Also religious resistance can be very strong in India.

China will eventually collapse under its population dependence ratio with young people being too small to support the aged. Yeah sure we need to implement that here


Then again, you have demonstrated how Chinese growth story is not due to one child policy and actually due to free market reforms


If China introduced one child policy in 1979 then the actual effect of it must have been realised only after a decade in 1999, but it was realised a full two decades earlier coinciding with reform dates of 1979. why?

 

[Mad Indian]

I think the biggest success of the CONgoons is convincing the stupid indians that their biggest ----up of the Indian economy was not due to it's mismanagements with Socialist policies and that it is because of Indian over population.

 

[Mad Indian]

I agree, a lot of economic woes go back to the Nehruvian Socialism, but could that be the whole sole problem, what if India had been on the right of center on economic policies right from the start, and where do factor in the population in all this?

I take Nehruvian Socialism as a part of the problem, India was engulfed in a lot of turmoil back in days after independence, the fear of the 'unknown foreigner' persisted, BJP and the left as late as 2013 debated this fear and psyched up people when the FDI in retail was being discussed, and people echoed, shouting the re-emergence of the East India Company, on this very forum, some very well educated, and excellent debaters were taken in by the sentiment, now imagine the complexities back in those days when the lala, the private investor and the foreigner were seen in no different light, and a population that was 80% illiterate and those literate, hardly understood the A of economics, more importantly, the extremist left trying to grab power. I believe, a line somewhere had to be drawn, and Nehru took the middle path, neither here not there, a typical of Indian mindset, and not as much a typical of Nehru, of course this later was to be associated with him alone.

I do not as much blame Nehru, as I do Indira. This lady had all going for her, and all she did, she brought in more regressive economic policies, and it was during her time, the left seized the power in West Bengal, which further pulled India back. The common theme became the unions, and her reaction to it was violent initially, and then become a part of the process, this lady ruined India the most, economically. The concept of elitism was developed in her era, corruption seeped into the system deep in her time, grab the power at any cost was introduced by her, and in doing all this, when India should have moved to the right on economic policies, she took us more to the left, and by then the second socialist generation was developing ideas, and they were being fed more socialism. India's think tank literally became the JNU in Delhi, and this was the time when your average to top bureaucrat had to be a JNU pass out, and now not only did we have a regressive leader at the top, but a complete body of bureaucracy that was left leaning but elitist.

Of all the Gandhis, one who was really keen on shaping a new India, was Rajiv, made a decent start but succumbed to the antics of power all too soon, nor did he ever get a second chance.

Population has to be a factored in, and the beliefs of the population. Can you enlighten a crude mindset overnight, only a miracle would do, no man can! Our population was no different, and a decent part, still is. Nehru was no miracle man. We were a deeply casteist society, and had fixated minds on who would do what, nor would people be ready to work with any and everyone. To shake up this mindset, it would have meant time, and so more blame heads Indira's way, for she was sitting on the luxury of time, her dad never had. We hardly fared well in education, and thankfully, because of Nehru, we had top level educational facility, whatever was of it. The other, this was a struggling class, looking for secured jobs, that provided them security, would these people have taken to private jobs as easily, do not forget, even today a private job is not as highly looked up to as is a "secured" government job in India.

Over population is a concern, and when you singularly look at it, yes Nehru comes off as a villian. The most simple answer seems be on the right of center for economic policies, and all would have been fixed with India being a thriving society. Fair enough but for this Nehru or any leader at the helm of affairs would have to be an out right authoritarian, where no opposition would have been tolerated, a very strong military ready to toe state's and the leader's ideology, and basically shape up the country as this leader would have wanted, and yes I agree, a lot of nonsense in this country is because there is too much freedom, and this freedom is taken for granted by one and all! But look at the bigger picture, would we have been able to sustain even as a nation, let alone think about economic policies? Would a South Indian or a North Eastern have taken to the dictates of a North Indian of vice-versa on cultural issues, because an authoritarian would have flirted with all the issues and tried and make them his way!

Imagine if Modi would have happened to India a couple of decades ago, would the Indians have taken to him as he has been now? Would his economic policies have had as much sway? I do not think so. Things and situations evolve. May be we would have had huge economic development by now, but we would have been debating freedom, cursing, having moved from the Mugals to the Brits to a dictator!

Sir you have only addressed the part about whether we could have had a free market govt or not during our socialist screw up era. But my point is, would we still be poor and consider ourselves to be over populated if we had a free market economy off the bat?

If India indeed is over populated and hence being poor, why is that much more crowded countries more prosperous than us?

 

[Mad Indian]

I agree that these countries don't have huge oil reserves. But unlike India these countries are less dependent on agriculture. Our arable land will also reduce if we give importance to industrialization. Your points will become valid only if world becomes over dependent on agriculture. I don't think that will happen. We can cultivate crops again and again in same land. But things we import depreciate according to consumption. High population growth will only help Middle East countries get cheap work force and high demand for their oil. This will help terrorists get more funds from Middle East countries. In past it was easy for politicians to fool poor people. But now that is changing. If population of poor people increase then that will cause more burden on middle class.

Dude you too? Seriously?

Where have I said anything about agricultural sector being our primary economic sector. Do you believe India can become(has the potential that is) a high income country with a GDP per capita in excess of 40000$ in the coming three decades, with right policies of economics?

 

[Mad Indian]

The Nehruvian socialism, for all its ills, gave India what India needed at that time the most.

At a very crawling speed at the cost of losing us four decades of lost growth

India made great strides in healthcare, and life expectancy increased. India also made strides in food security. By the 80s, India has made great strides in these two areas, due to which, there was a population explosion. It is still happening.

Not true

What India could not do, and is impossible to achieve, is enforcing a one child or two children policy. It worked in PRC, which is why, they are better off than us. In a truly socialist-cum-authoritarian state, this would have been possible. India was socialist but free country, and such policies just wouldn't have worked.

Not true.

If Amoy is to be trusted China adopted single child policy in 1979 and yet grew at 8-10â„… p.a till 1989 or 1999 when the effect of the one child policy will come into effect. Clearly then there is no correlation between one child policy and growth of GDP

We keep blaming the past, or blaming socialism, but have we ever seriously discussed what would have happened had we adopted a different approach to nation-building? We seem content with this quasi-national pastime of shifting the blame.

Shifting the blame? Are you kidding me? Socialism DID cause all our ills. Facts don't change for our ideological preference dude. Its not a blame game to call a spade a spade. Even in India, the once mighty west Bengal is a glorious example of socialist screw up.

Yes, our population is a bane. To answer @Mad Indian, yes, it is a handicap for the country. Now, let's see what we can do going forward, instead of cribbing over the past.

Honestly I need mode than sweepimg statements like this and actual points to indicate that India is ill indeed due to over population.

 

[Mad Indian]

Over-populated or under-populated are all relative terms. But, as a workforce, our productivity is quite low due to the systems we inherited (relentlessly feudalistic in guise of socialism). Once we go about 360 degree institutional reforms (electoral, judiciary, bureaucratic, police, tax & monetary reforms, etc.), we would score much higher on this count (productivity). And, that is all that counts.

Most of the vexing ills we face, would get taken care of, automatically.

So you do agree that our problems will disappear with good economic policies right? This is despite the fact that our population would actually increase in coming years?! So how is it fair to still blame our problems on population?


It's about time we start teaching facts and history a such to our kids and our selves about how India was royally screwed up by that Nehru moron and the CONgoon clan!

In fact if we calculate the Life expectance of South Korea with India , its almost 10 years less. Now multiply our pop with that many years and that is the number of years the Socialist dogs have destroyed in India under the pretext of equality and justice

 

[Mad Indian]

High Arable Land in India is only indicative of very low forest cover. Its also an indicator of how many people you can feed. But its not an indicator of prosperity. Neither is it an indicator of potential prosperity. India's agricultural output in 400 billion dollars. Even if we raise it by five times over the next 20 years, it will still be a measly 2 trillion dollars compared with the then projected GDP of 10 trillion.

India's population is currently more a liability than a resource. Remember in 1947 our population was 300 million people. We just started humping like rabbits after that.

Do you believe India can pull off two decades of 10â„… economic growth followed by two more of 8% for two mor with correct economic policies and a good government? If yes, would we be a high income country or a low income country? Andwhen it happens will India have more population or less population than now. While I agree that Indian population is more a liability now than an asset, will Indian population be an asset or a liability in future India (where we have assumed a good economic performance for four decades)?

And I think you mis understood my purpose of bringing in arable land. Its not for demonstrating the potential agricultural income per set from it but rather for showing how we could potentially support a much higher population without resorting to food import.

 

[Mad Indian]

I do not think China moved forward due to one child policy. It was the implementation of reforms.

About population being handicap. Yes, poor illiterate population is handicap in retrospect. But I think @Mad Indian referred to if it is the sole reason for all of India's problems as it is usually pointed out to be.

Illiteracy while bad is not actually not that big of an inducer of economic misery.


The richest state in the world-US is certainly not the most literate in the work.

For instance most of the unskilled labour which the nation inevitably requires is not gonna require a full literacy .

Anyway my point is as you have said, over population is not and was never a reason for our ills. We in fact are miserable thanks to four decades of non stop socialist screwing of our economy

 

[pmaitra]

At a very crawling speed at the cost of losing us four decades of lost growth

What could ave India done differently? Why don't you list them out? Growth does not grow on a mango tree. Let's see what alternatives you have.

Not true

Of course it is true.

Not true.

If Amoy is to be trusted China adopted single child policy in 1979 and yet grew at 8-10â„… p.a till 1989 or 1999 when the effect of the one child policy will come into effect. Clearly then there is no correlation between one child policy and growth of GDP

Read his post again, and try to understand what he is saying. Read it nicely. Don't cherry-pick sentences.

Shifting the blame? Are you kidding me? Socialism DID cause all our ills. Facts don't change for our ideological preference dude. Its not a blame game to call a spade a spade. Even in India, the once mighty west Bengal is a glorious example of socialist screw up.

No, I am not kidding you. You have not lived through the famines. You have not lived through the floods. You know nothing of whatever you are talking about. Think of Food Corporation of India. Think of the Dams. Those are all products of socialism. Your ignorance of the past does not change the facts.

Honestly I need mode than sweepimg statements like this and actual points to indicate that India is ill indeed due to over population.

Exactly, and that is why I am asking you to provide actual points instead of going about "not true." It proves nothing.

 

[abhi_the _gr8_maratha]

for example a man earns 100 per day by working in farm. What he suits 1/2 children or 4 children?
.
and if rich people have 4 children instead of 2 , 2 more vacancy of jobs fills cause rich one will do anything to give his child a job.

 

[pmaitra]

for example a man earns 100 per day by working in farm. What he suits 1/2 children or 4 children?
.
and if rich people have 4 children instead of 2 , 2 more vacancy of jobs fills cause rich one will do anything to give his child a job.

Exactly.

More the people, more will be the supply of labour, and lower will be the salary. Of course over-population has a negative effect on income, and by extension, prosperity.

 

[Peter]

Dude? Did you even read what I wrote. The list I gave are the countries which are significantly over populated and still have a better standard of living than us and that too without exporting oil

Yes I read what you wrote. Check out Italy and India in your and my rankings. What position have you put them in?

Also see my response very slowly and carefully. You have no idea about growth and irregularity of these rankings..

 

[Peter]

@Mad Indian have you now seen the ranks.
Anyway your argument that a greater population would produce more doctors,engineers etc is not correct.

What makes an engineer or a doctor? Is it brains or money?

I would say you do require brains but MONEY plays a bigger role.Do you see the same number of students from villages as compared to city students in your medical college? What is the reason- the village people have no brains or is that the village people cannot afford special tuition in fitjee,akaash etc.? Money is a huge factor is success. With a larger population you would not have the adequate resources to produce doctors,engineers etc.

Let me make it clear with an example.

Say a farmer couple has only one child. They decide they would have no further children and make their only son an engineer. Despite all their hardships the farmer saves enough to make his son an engineer by giving him proper tuition etc.

Now say another farmer after seeing this, he too decides to make his progeny doctors,engineers etc. However he decides he will have more children than the other farmer and will make more doctors,engineers etc. His logic is simple the more the better. Unfortunately he does not have more money.He has five kids. Do you think that this farmer will succeed in his big dream? What will happen to his children? Let me tell you what will happen. Not even one of them will become a doctor,engineer etc. They will all end up as farmhands.

Why do you not understand the simple fact that a greater population means less resources for everyone?
So a greater population does not mean greater number of success stories etc. As long as resources do not increase(bit like Malthusian concept) a smaller population will always win.

@Mad Indian read this and in a non crazy way