I consider humanity to be a cancer for the earth if the latter is considered as an organism….a single giant life form. This idea is chiefly based on our ever increasing population on the planet. Presently the world population stands at 6 billion and has shown a 3 fold increase in last century. Never ever in the earth’s history has the human population grown at this pace. We made technological advancements, especially in medical science, and ensured our survival in an attempt to overcome our primal fear of death. With developing countries like India still continuing to grow in population at a very rapid rate, the human population on earth has been projected to double in the next fifty years or so. India alone contributes around 17% of the world population. Every 6th person in this world is an Indian. There are only three countries in the world, China, USA and Indonesia, who have a population exceeding the population of just one state, Uttar Pradesh, of India. Today India stands at a terrifying population of more than 1027 million of which around 42% lies below the international poverty line. Right since the day India won its long awaited and long coveted freedom to make its policies on its own, the policy makers, ab initio, had the challenge of population in mind as even in 1947 Indian population was comparatively higher than the rest of the world. Given this huge population base even a small growth rate of 1.7% would have increased the population of India multifold, as it did. Henceforth, in 1951 itself, in the first five year plan, India became one of the first countries in the world to enunciate a comprehensive population policy and family planning program. But given the scarcity of funds owing to colonially ruined economy, the budgetary allocation in first five year plan was only 65 lakhs. It was all talk. Only from second five year plan onwards certain substantial measures were taken that reached their pinnacle in 1980s during Indira Gandhi’s regime when coercive policy decisions were taken to enforce family planning measures that lead to widespread dissent among the illiterate masses, finally culminating into congress’s defeat. The political circles of India got so scared thereafter that nobody ever dared to take on the issue of population control with the sense of urgency that it deserved. The measures were diluted and made optional. Concomitantly, the idea of “development is the best contraceptive” was propounded on the ground that with economic development and the associated downstream chain of effects, a child would be considered an economic liability rather than an asset. It was henceforth deduced that it is actually the “dependent population” that is the real problem. So if we could achieve economic independence for every individual and a higher standard of living, it will also lead to higher cost of living and hence having more than a couple of children would automatically become unaffordable. But then came the issue of environmental degradation that was answered by us through the utterly ambiguous, and to some extent utopian, concept of sustainable development whereby we are supposed to make a more judicious use of available natural resources in a way that can be sustained over a long period of time for generations to come. That would ideally be a way through which earth and its environment are given the chance to replenish its resource supplies for further usage.
Please don’t take me wrong. I am not against any of the policy decisions or concepts that have been proposed on this matter till date. Right since the Malthusian idea of eventual food scarcity for human race due to its geometric population growth rate, we have been relentlessly trying to prove him wrong. And being optimistic individuals, we may pat our back for at least becoming aware of this challenge and taking some measures to deal with it.
However, I look at this issue from a different perspective. As I said in the beginning, if we consider the whole earth, the entire biosphere, as one giant organism, all the species constituting it would be different organs of the organism that work in a synchronized manner to sustain the life of the organism as a whole. The physical environment of the earth, its resources, etc. would the supporters of the different species to accomplish this task. It has been this way since time immemorial. But what happens once a cancer starts developing inside the body of an organism…? A cancer is nothing except a few cells of an organ that go berserk and start multiplying at a very rapid rate. They start consuming the resources that were meant for other cells and organs so as to ensure their own survival and further proliferation. Sooner than later, these cells spread in every part of body and start multiplying everywhere and repeating the same selfish and disastrous cycle of multiplication at the cost of the cells of the host region. Soon their number becomes so overwhelming that they start obstructing the functioning of the rest of the cells which gradually die because of lack of nutrition and other life supporting resources. Eventually, the organism, as a whole, starts suffering and showing symptoms of the disease and finally the organism dies which, ironically, leads to the death of the cancerous cells as well, something that they have been trying to avoid so very much by multiplying as much as they can. All along this process, the internal environment of the organism’s body tries to stop the cancerous cells through what we see as the immune response. Many cancerous cells die too. But many manage to survive against these odds by adapting more and more and developing resistance to the attacks of the immune system. Further, a part of the immune system recognizes the cancerous cells as “self” cells and hence doesn’t attack them, a phenomenon grossly misused by these cells for their own eventual destruction.
Now, let’s put ourselves at the place of cancerous cells and the earth as an organism of which we are just one part. We have been multiplying normally to maintain our numbers since the dawn of mankind, just like ordinary cells do. But then succumbing to our fear of death and the grief of losing our loved ones, we defied death through developments in science and technology. Death rates came down thus giving a relative boost to our multiplication. Everything was still ok till the population increase was within the natural range of variation in numbers. Further increase meant that we had to consume from what was meant for other species and even other humans (origin of haves and have nots). Henceforth we increased geometrically in our numbers. The environment tried to stop us in the form of natural disasters and epidemics (earth’s immune response) but few of us learned to cheat even that by manipulating our immediate environment. We kept on multiplying and multiplying and multiplying. Today, so many other organs of the biosphere have already died or are at the verge of extinction. We are sucking out every last bit of resource available to us from the earth’s body.
But the cancerous cells cannot think. We can. That’s why we came up with the idea of sustainable development. But the concept of development as the best contraceptive is like expecting the cancerous cells to develop thinking ability and hence stop multiplying! That won’t work. Because by the time everybody develops to such an economic standard of life at which the cost of living curbs population explosion, it will be too late. But through sustainable development it may be possible for us to stop ourselves from digging our own graves. The keyword here is “sustainable”. But sustain what? Our perpetual existence? Perpetual usage of earth’s resources? Nay…it’s the sustainability of earth’s life as an organism for it is only then that we would continue to exist. And this would not only mean that we have to focus on alternative sources of energy, rather we should focus first on restoring the lost balance of nature and then “sustaining” it. How to do it? Simple…rather than dealing with the symptoms and employing ad-hoc means, we would better eradicate the cause itself. And what began all this…? Our relentless multiplication. That’s it. The whole problem started because of our multiplication, so stop multiplying crazily….fools. Nothing else, absolutely nothing else can solve this problem permanently. The whole idea of sustainable development and environmental preservation is supposed to be based on population control.
Conclusively, the point I am trying to make here is we can and must continue with all the ideologies and measures that we think can help, but at the same time we must not ignore the fact that until and unless we stop multiplying cancerously, the problem would never be solved. Our ideas of economic development and sustainable development also reflect our same old misplaced zeal of “survival at the cost of anything”. We can continue to treat one symptom after other leading to more and more side effects, but until we cure the cause, hit the nail, the problem shall stay and would make sure that we eventually get defeated in the very purpose for which we have been doing all this. Therefore, somebody in Indian political circle and leaders at international fora must show the necessary will to choose and do what is imperative without any further ado. Hopefully the entrepreneurial youth brigade would understand this.
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