Demographics of India and our Environment

N Munal Meitei *

India, one of the oldest civilizations in the world has remarkably diverse demographics. India is the second largest populous country in the world, with over 1.21 billion people, more than a sixth of the world's population indicating an increase of 17.64 per cent during the last decade. According to the provisional Census report published on 31-3-2011, the male population of India has grown up by 17.19 per cent and reached 62 crore and the female population has risen by 18.12 per cent to reach 58 crore. India is projected to be the world's most populous country by 2025, surpassing China.

Now, India's population has touched the combined population of the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Japan. But the 2001-2011 is the first decade which has lesser rate of population growth compared to the previous decades. Thus India supports 18.5% of the world population and about 18% of the world's cattle population though we have only 2.4% of the global geographical area.

However, India has an astonishing demographic dividend where more than 50% of its population is below the age of 25 and more than 65% hovers below the age of 35. This is expected that, in 2020, the average age of an Indian will be 29 years, compared to 37 for China and 48 for Japan; and, by 2030, India's dependency ratio should be just over 0.4. India has more than two thousand ethnic groups, and every major religion is represented, as there are four major families of languages such as Indo-European, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman languages as well as a language in isolated form as in the Nihali language spoken in parts of Maharashtra.

Further complexity is lent by the great variation that occurs across this population on social parameters such as income and education. Only the continent of Africa exceeds the linguistic, genetic and cultural diversity of the nation of India.

India has more arable land area than any other country except the United States, and more water area than any country except Canada and the United States. Indian life revolves mostly around agriculture and allied activities in small villages, where the overwhelming majority of Indians live. Since the country is in monsoon type of climate, most of our agricultural crops which have the highest impact on our economy depend on the good climatic condition. An abrupt change in the climatic condition of the country may affect up to 5% of our GDP. As per the 2001 census, 72.2% of the population lives in about 638,000 villages and the remaining 27.8% lives in more than 5,100 towns and over 380 urban agglomerations.

India contains the majority of the world's Zoroastrians, Sikhs, Hindus, Jains and Bahá'í. India is also home to the third-largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan and largest minority population. Religious majorities vary greatly by State. Jammu and Kashmir and Lakshadweep are Muslim majority States; Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya are Christian majority; Punjab is mostly Sikh.

Linguistic demographics

There are 216 languages with more than 10,000 native speakers in India. The largest of these is Hindi with some 337 million people and the second largest being Bangla with some 207 million. Under 8th Schedule, 22 languages are recognized as official languages.

In India, 43% of the Hindus speak Hindi while the rest speak Bangla, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Assamese and other languages. Almost 45% of the Muslims speak Urdu while the rest speak Bangla, Hindi, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Assamese and other languages. About one-third of the Christians speak Malayalam, one-sixth speak Tamil while the rest speak a variety of languages. In total, there are 1,652 languages and dialects spoken in India.

Religions: India being a secular country, there is no official religion. The religion wise population of India is Hindu 80.5%, Muslim 13.4%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.8%, Buddhists 0.8%, Jains 0.4%, others 0.7% and unspecified 0.1%. The percentage of Scheduled Castes and Tribes are 16.2% and 8.2% respectively.

A condensed 2011 Demographics of India

At a total cost of Rupees 22,000 million, the 15th National Census of India was conducted in two phases. The first Census of the country was held in 1872. In the first phase of the 15th National Census, a house listing & housing census was carried out from April to September 2010 and the second one was the Population Enumeration that was carried out from 9th to 28th February 2011.

This National Census of the country provides data on India's latest demographic characteristics, social and economic activities, literacy, urbanization, migration rates and so on. It is widely used for Planning and formulation of policies for the central and State governments.

India's literacy rate is 74% for the age above 7 with Kerala being the highest among the States and Delhi among the Union Territories. Bihar and Rajasthan has the lowest literacy rate with 64% and 67% respectively. Having crossed the 70% literacy mark, India would now be out of the league of countries with very poor development record.

It is still way below the countries like Congo (81%), South Africa (88%), Brazil (90%), Sri Lanka (91%) and China (93%). The countries sex ratio is 914 to 1000 and hence the gender bias again drew attention to a lingering societal flaw that despite of impressive economic growth, India has not succeeded in correcting it. Mizoram has the highest sex ratio of 971 and Haryana with lowest for 830

Among the States, UP with 199.5 million followed by Maharashtra with 112 million are the most populous States. These two States put together surpass the United States, the world's third largest populous country after China and India. Nagaland and Kerala are the slowest population growing States. Thane, on the outskirts of Mumbai has the highest population amongst all districts with 1 million, making the size of the country of Greece.

As per the report published on 31, March 2011, Delhi has the highest population density in the country, a staggering 11,297 people per square km and Arunachal Pradesh, has just 17 people per square km. The percentage of the population under the poverty line is 22%. The unemployment rate is around 7.8% and net migration rate is 0.05 migrant/1000 populations. The average life expectancy rate of the country is 70.32 years.

Comparison of India's Population with China

China's latest census revealed a number of accelerating demographic trends, almost all of which reflect the nation's three-decade effort to limit population growth under the one-child policy. Elders now make up 13 per cent of the population up from 10 per cent just a decade ago. Meanwhile, the number of under-14 youth declined from 23 per cent to 16 per cent, signaling a steep drop-off in new labour entering the marketplace.

With China also rapidly urbanizing, now 50 percent of the population, compared to just over one-third in 2000, the nation's fertility rate is likely locked into its sub-replacement rate, due to the high cost of housing, etc. Activists and experts in China are now openly challenging the logic of the one-child policy, arguing that it will create its own special burdens in the future But the Government shows little sign of relenting, even as the much-vilified agency in charge is allegedly pursuing a pilot programme that will expand the limit to two-children per couple. In truth, the system always quietly allowed a second child attempt if the first-born was a female, reflecting the social favouritism toward males.

Now, China's real challenge comes from its neighbour, India as China's worker-to-dependent ratio declines from here on out as elders accumulate. India will add 300 million workers by 2050, giving it a labour force 50 per cent larger. Southeast Asia will do much the same while China loses 150 million workers. All this is to say that China's cheap labour advantage begins disappearing now, meaning it must move up the production/value chain or suffer the economic consequences.

As such, as long as the one-child policy persists, India will surely surpass the population of China by 2025. But regarding the Environmental consciousness, China seems to be well ahead of India in terms of their development on Afforestaion, Wild life and Sequestration of green house gases.

Demographics of Manipur

As per the Provisional census published on March 2011, the population of Manipur has rose by 4, 27,850 from the last census 2001 totaling to 27, 21,756. Out of this total, 58.9% live in the valley which occupies only 1820 sq.km. and the remaining 41.1% in the hilly region which shares 20,507 sq.km. of the total geographical area of Manipur, 22, 327 sq.km.

It comprises 13, 69,764 males and 13, 51,992 females. Imphal West has the largest population of 5, 14,683 with males accounting to 2,53,628 and females 2,61,055. Total population figures for other districts are Imphal East district 4,52,661, Senapati district 3,54,972; Tamenglong district 1,40,143; Churachandpur district 2,71,274; Bishnupur district 2,40,363; Thoubal district 4,20,517, Ukhrul district 1,83,125 and Chandel district 1,44,028.

As a quite contrast to the national scenario, in some of the districts, the female population is higher than the male population such as in Imphal West, Imphal East and Thoubal districts. The numbers of male and female population are more or less equal in Bishnupur district. Literacy rate of Manipur has risen by 10 per cent from the last decade touching to 79.85 per cent. Population density of the State is now 127.7 persons per sq. km. and it was 103 only in the last census.

Impact on our Environment

The scientific consensus on population expansion and accompanying increase in usage of earth's resources is linked to threats to our Ecosystem and Environment. The World Wide Fund for Nature and Global Footprint Network have stated that the carrying capacity of the Earth for the human population has been exceeded many times as measured using the Ecological Footprint.

Humanity as a whole is using up the natural Resources 40 per cent more than what Earth can regenerate. A large expansion of agricultural land to provide for the growing populations has lead to further deforestation, loss of species, soil erosion, and pollution in all forms from energy production, pesticides and fertilizer.

Therefore, while assessing all these parameters, the country needs to curve the population explosion and for that thank to the leaders like late Sanjay Gandhi etc who tried to control the population explosion of the country at the very early time. Here remembered, the old saying that the more is the man, the more is the word.

The observation of World population day on the 11th July every year has also reminds us the urgency to curve the world population as the Human is diminishing the natural resources many times higher than what the earth can replenish. For Manipur also, the population impact to our Environment is innumerous. Due to increase in population, the present pressure to our forests is many folds. Weak Economy and Poor communication has also made to increase the Environmental problems.

Many Wetlands of Manipur has now been turn up to Croplands and Farmlands. But we know, Water is life and so Wetlands are the best Biodiversity Sites. Hence, we should conserve our Wetlands. Every year huge tones of Charcoal are produced from the hilly regions of Manipur not only to toast the winter cold but also for some Small Scale Industries like Blacksmith, Goldsmith and Dhobi etc. In our State, for making of charcoal, the root stock of trees mainly coppicer are uprooted and burnt.

This is the worst of the worst challenges to our Forests leading to Soil erosion and many more Ecological problems. Charcoal should be made only from the branches, twigs or stump etc. but not from the roots. To protect our forest we need to see some of the parameters. The present numbers of staff in Forest Department, Manipur are only 0.036% of the State population and each Forest Guard has to protect about 48 sq. km. of State land which is next to impossible.

The Budgetary allocation of Forest Department is less than 1% of the total State Budget. But the National Forests Policy envisages for allocating at least 2% of the whole State Budget to Forestry sector. The Government should look into this matter for immediate rectification.

Therefore, unless every one of us from all sections of the Society does not voluntarily accept and share our responsibility to save our mother Earth, then we will be surely in an Environmental dilemma in the future years to come.