Religious and cultural practices and overpopulation
Anisul Haque
A special report released by the UNFPA sometime ago revealed that Bangladeshs population is rising too fast for comfort. It found the size of the present population of the country at 160.4 million dispelling the figure officially supplied from its government that the population was only 150 million.
The population of Bangladesh, thus, is realistically set to rise to 170.2 million as early as 2020 at the current rate of its growth. Surely, such a bigger population to be supported by the limited means for its sustenance could create too great multi-faceted stresses on the economy, social and political stability and the environment.
Government can be blamed for not being able to put a leash on population growth. But population growth is fuelled as much by biological urges as social and cultural practices. Big families used to be the part of the social scene at one time even in todays developed countries with their present limited population. Nobody or the governments in those countries had spread so much of information or the gospels of planned parenthood to the people of those countries . The restraint gradually occurred automatically in those countries with their people becoming wiser on their own and population growth began to fell.
Indeed it is not really the governments job to peep into every home having fertile couples and tell them to have less sex or sex with controls to limit births. Or, the poverty factor that seeks to explain that the poor cannot even buy condoms or take birth control pills inexpensively that lead to population surge, is also not a very tenable explanation. For even birth control materials are within the purchasing power of the poor in most cases in Bangladesh these days. The real factor why such a high birth rate exists involves really a sense of the highest irresponsibility or a very casual approach to an issue that so much concern their own and national well-being among some 55.8 fertile couples in the country who still do not practice any form of birth controls.
There was a time when people in our neighbourhood --the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Thais, the Singaporeans, etc. -- were also high breeders . But gradually with urbanization and even with nobody breathing down their neck to adopt family planning, people in these countries started realizing the merit of having smaller families. Population growth started falling appreciably in these countries from the greater awareness of the people than any other factor. Today, our northern and south east Asian neighbours are benefiting from the slowed down population growth. Population growth has fallen drastically all across Asia with the exception of south Asia and Bangladesh in particular.
There are other aspects of modernization or catching up that this writer noted among our Asian neighbours. For instance, like in Bangladesh there are also rickshaws and rickshaw pullers in China and the south east Asian countries. Like in Bangladesh, they too used to wear lungis or traditional gears while operating their rickshaws. But wearing half pants or short trousers can be more convenient than the traditional wears like lungis which may be comforting as home wear but tends to slip off while pedaling. So, the rickshaw pullers have all but given up wearing traditional dresses while pedaling the rickshaws. But in Bangladesh the pullers are overwhelmingly and stubbornly clinging on to wearing the lungis despite the inconvenience. Suggesting to them that they should change their ways, may invite their hateful response.
Going back to the population growth issue, one must not fail to note also the very important underlying social, religious and cultural practices that encourage the growth. Mullahs in the countryside tell their adoring audiences that birth control is sinful. Child marriage is a live reality among the preponderant number in the population who live in the rural areas. These people still believe that the more they reproduce, specially sons, the more they will be secure in old age as they would depend on the earnings of their grown up sons. Hardly they bother to think that in their race to have more sons, they also land up in many cases by having daughters who in turn only lend to the population boom further.
Thus, on the one hand, we have more than fifty per cent of the couples with reproductive abilities not practicing family planning. On the other hand, any study would probably reveal that the majority of the couples are very young ones from encouraging child marriage. Available statistics show that 60 per cent of the females in the country become mothers by the age of 19 when their fertility remain at a peak . They give birth to a number of children even as they remain teenagers. This alone should explain why it is proving to be so difficult to control the population boom.
But someone should start belling the cat. Somehow through greater activism of social organizations, NGOs and others this fatal trend of early marriage must be checked firmly. Even legislation need to be considered as a deterrent. The subject needs to be brought sharply into focus or in the national limelight.
The writer is lead programmer in a national NGO dealing with population control
