A Lesson to be Learnt: Are we following India's Family Planning Blindly?
- Part 2 -

Dr. Ngangbam Shantikumar Meetei & Chen Nan-Tai *

Family Planning symbol used in India : Pix Source - Wikipedia

Does Manipur really need India's family planning?

In 2001 in India, there was 1 Manipuri out of 1,000 Indians. According to 2001 Census of India, the population of India was 1,028,610,328. And the population of Manipur was only 2,166,788 (http://planningmanipur.gov.in). Recently, Mirabai Devi , the Minister of Welfare, Manipur pursued every woman in Manipur to give birth 12 children. Sounds ridiculous! Isn't it? But the truth is - it could be a warning call for all the Manipuries who are living inside and outside the state, especially those who are educated, employed, earning well and have a better life who do not have kids, or planning not to have at all, or not more than two kids.

What about if all the Manipuri adults like to stay single, or marry late? What if all the couples follow India's family planning and have only one or two kids in the name of better economy, modern, western life style and individualism? Anyway, who follow the family planning? Only those who have better jobs, who are educated and those who have the ability to raise more than two kids.

Isn't it ridiculous that those who are poor, not so educated or not able to raise kids don't follow family planning. Then what is the meaning? It may be good for those few individuals who follow family planning for their few kids or for themselves economically. Maybe for some time. In the long run as majority carries the vote, these few educated and well-raised kids will have no place to live, have no identity, no power. They will be marginalized as minority in their own land. What a terrible future we are creating for them. As the saying goes "Majority carries the vote" the power will go to the majority, the mainland Indians.

With the coming of railways to Manipur and no inner line permit, many more mainland Indian workers and businessmen will be flooded much faster than before. The number of mainland Indians, other illegal immigrants is already overwhelming. What will possibly happen once the railways are opened to this tiny state? The small and minor community called Manipuri maybe swallowed by the uncountable mainland Indians and illegal immigrants.

Look at the present situation in Imphal and almost in all the important towns and villages the number of mainland Indian businessmen and labors! Whether you like it or not they are everywhere. Now the best way is to consider the wake up call from the Minister of Welfare, Mirabai Devi before we opt to follow India's Family Planning or nuclear family or individualism. Instead of having short sighted view, selfish or individual gains we need to consider deeply the future of our children if they will ever have the power to rule themselves, maintain their identity and continue to live as Manipures.

Manipur will have to various problems like Taiwan

Not only losing our identity, power and marginalized as minority in our homeland, we Manipur will have to face economic problems, divorce problems, child and elderly abuse problems and aging problems like Taiwan if Manipur doesn't check the trend of decreasing birth rate and household size on time. At present, because of the aging population, there are more and more elders in Taiwan who live in a pity and lonely conditions, even though the economy is much better than Manipur.

Seeing such cases were very rare, were never seen, or hardly seen before when stem family was culture in Taiwan. But now because of the impact of family planning and Western cultures so many elders live a pity and lonely life. Most of them live alone in lonely house, or taken care of by hired people from other South East Asian countries, or in an old nursery home taken care of by nurses. But in many cases, these elderly are not treated well and they never like to live in these houses. But where could they go if their children don't like to live with them or take care of them?

The same case can be said about the situation in Manipur. Under the influence of Indian and western cultures and family planning the social and family structures in Manipur have been greatly changed. Influenced by western cultures and family planning many families have become smaller and smaller which normally have only one or two children. Maybe these nuclear families give them a better life but at the expense of their parents and even at the expense of Manipur's future.

In the name of modern and small family many young couples don't like to live with their elder parents. They want freedom. They don't like to be responsible and take the burden to raise the elders. Let's say, for example, a young couple has their own parents. Maybe the man likes to keep his parents with them but the wife doesn't like.

On the other hand the wife also likes to keep her own parents as she is the only child (nuclear family) but then the man doesn't like. In such cases, not only the man's parents but also the wife's parents have to live by themselves. For a couple's better life four elders' lives have to be sacrificed. And this is what happening right now in Manipur.

To summarize, in the last few decades, Taiwan has experienced a great deal of changes in her social and family structures mainly caused by the impact of family planning and western style, individualism. These changes have brought a lot of unwanted consequences like: many adults who like to stay single, very late marriage, increasing divorce, lowest birth rate in the whole world, aging population, abuse of infants and elders by the caretakers and so on in spite of her very good social structures and economy conditions.

Manipur, on the other hand, has the lowest infant mortality rate in all Indian states according to Demographic profile, thus becoming the best place to be born, even though Manipur is just one of the smaller and poor states in the Northern Eastern part of India. People here have pretty long life. So far, even though the society is a mess and the economy is very bad, Manipuri families are functional and can protect young kids and take care of elders in a far better conditions than other parts of India.

But the situation may change and unwanted consequences may happen in the very near future like what has happened in Taiwan, maybe even worse if we, all the Manipuries don't review our traditional family values and hold India's family planning, and learn how to balance between traditional family values, modern life style and work in the modern world.

For any developing or developed area or country, the people there should look and learn what have happened to other areas or countries in following the well intentioned social plans like family planning, before they really put into action. Western culture like individualism or nuclear family may fit in our societies, or it may crash down our traditional joint family or stem family system, bringing more unwanted results as happened in many East Asian countries like Taiwan, Japan, South Korea to mention some in spite of their better social structures and very good economy.



Concluded....