By Rajan Narayan

THE birth rate figures for Goa are far more alarming than the national average birth rate which is 2.1%. Let us understand what birth rate is and why it is causing so much concern to the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. The birth rate at which the Indian population is growing. Since a minimum of two, man and woman, are needed to create life, the minimum replacement rate is two.
The bottom line as far as the RSS is concerned is that the Hindu population is not growing at a rate as fast as the so called minority or Muslim or Catholic population. Never mind that Hindus are the majority community. Indeed, the RSS has long since been targeting the Muslim community claiming that the Muslim population is increasing at a much faster rate than the Hindu population. The slogan of the RSS in targeting the Muslim community has been “Hum Panch, Hamre Panchpan” (we have grown to 55). Mohan Bhagwat is worried that Hindus will lose their majority status in Hindustan.
It is in this context that Mohan Bhagwat has asked Hindus to have at least three children. It is a hilarious irony that the RSS should be asking Hindus to have three children as the swayam sevak of the RSS, including Mohan Bhagwat, are all bachelors observing a vow of celibacy and are not supposed to be married with wives and children. The belief is that they should not waste their semen but should preserve all their energy not for breeding but for the propagating the Hindutva cause.
In this context a good-humored senior Muslim leader has suggested that the RSS swayam sevak should get married and have three or even ten children, if they are concerned about declining Hindu population. The concern about the rise and fall in various birth rates is because this can affect the identity of a country or a state.

TRUE OF GOA
THIS is particularly true of a small state like Goa with an estimated population of under 20 lakh. The latest available figures would seem to suggest that the rate of birth in Goa is much less than even 2% at 1.6% to 1.8%. This means that at least in respect of the native Goan population the numbers are declining sharply. But the decline is more than made up by the steady increase in the migrant population into Goa.
Interestingly, the original Goan population of Hindus, Catholics, and even Muslims has been growing at less than 2%. If you look at the details of the growth in Goa’s population over the last three decades it is clear that the population of niz Goenkar Goans has declined but that of migrants have increased. This is causing a fundamental change in the composition of the original Goan Hindu, Catholic and Muslim communities.
At the time of Liberation, ethnic Goans comprised 90% of the population and migrants represented only 10%. Due to successive waves of migrants post-Liberation and particularly in the first four decades, the balance of population has changed in favor of migrants. The influx of migrants which peaked to 35% in the 70s and 80s decade has slowed down but is still very high.
However, the Goan population continues to decline as both Hindus and Catholics in Goa are marrying later and having much fewer children. Reportedly due to a lack of job opportunities in Goa there is a shortage of suitable boys for marriage. The average age of marriage has gone up to 30 years. This restricts the number of women in the reproductive category.
Even more disturbing is that Goans who had large families before Liberation, post-Liberation restricted themselves to two children if not one. This is true not only of the majority Hindu community but also of the Catholic community. The directive of the Church barring family planning is ignored by the majority of Catholics. The hard reality is that whether it is Hindus Catholics or Muslims in Goa, they are more interested in quality of life than quantity of children. They would much rather have fewer children to whom they can give a good education than have dozens of children with little education.
The fact that Goa has a very good free education and healthcare system makes it possible for everyone, including migrant families seeking settlement, to chase their dreams of a good life. We presume that what is happening in Goa is also happening in the rest of the country. The reason why the birth rate is going down in the entire country is because the standard of living is going up.
More people are getting educated, particularly women. The saying goes “beti bachao, beti padao” has been adopted by women in India. Since women now account for more than 50% of the voters they are now being taken more seriously. It is widely believed that a special allowance of Rs1,500 extended to all women in Maharashtra, played a major role in the victory of Maha Vikas Aghadi Alliance of the BJP and the breakaway factions of the Shiv Sena and the NCP.

WORLDWIDE PHENOMENON
IN retrospect, we are inclined to believe that the Ladli Laxmi scheme and the Griha Aadhaar introduced by the late Manohar Parrikar is a major factor in BJP capturing power in Goa. It is a worldwide phenomenon because as poverty levels are reduced and incomes increased, the population will go down. Forget about having two or more children, an increasing number of young people in the West do not even believe in or want to get married. There is a major concern in countries like the US and the UK the where older local population has or is slipping into minority status just because migrant families are taking over the country and indeed, buying it up.
It’s not only India’s RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat but USA’s second time around president elect Donald Trump who is appealing to original white migrant Americans to have more children. Elsewhere, in China, the government after its brutal one-child policy regime of the past, is now providing incentives to couples to have an average of four children or more.
Perhaps it is far more important to improve the quality of life for the existing population than to worry about the decline in population. The ground reality is that populations are declining the world over, as more and more people are preferring to exchange quality of life to having large families which make quality difficult to achieve