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At an event on October 21, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu encouraged couples to have more children. Noting that the state’s average population growth has declined to 1.6%, he said that Andhra Pradesh was “already in deficit”.
“Having more than two children will ensure a stable population,” he declared.
Naidu’s concerns are not unique. Around the world, countries as disparate as Poland and South America are trying to find solutions for their decreasing fertility rates. In May, a Lancet study of global fertility in 204 countries said, “...Human civilisation is rapidly converging on a sustained low-fertility reality.”
As countries notch up more deaths than births, their total populations will start to decline. It also means that the number of the elderly will grow – presenting the economic challenge of having to support them with a smaller labour force of younger workers.
In Andhra Pradesh, Naidu noted, the elderly will outnumber the young after 2047.
Naidu’s concern, an MP from the Telugu Desam Party claimed, is political: the state’s decreasing population will reduce its bargaining power with the Centre.
But though worries in Andhra Pradesh and around the world about falling populations are expressed in political and economic terms, they actually mask acute cultural anxieties.
Underpinning these sentiments is the perception that the migrant workers being hired in areas with low fertility rates to fill essential labour gaps are a threat to cultural and national values.
The call to couples to have more children is deeply patriarchal. It disregards the aspirations of women who seek to chart out a future on their own terms, building careers, delaying childbirth and even choosing not to have children.
It is tied to the idea of nationalism in which women culturally and literally reproduce the nation by giving birth to and raising a productive workforce that is appropriately imbibed with the desired cultural values.
Naidu articulated this quite clearly. “Having more children is also your responsibility,” he declared. “You are not doing it for yourself, it is also for the benefit of the nation, it is a service to society.”
North vs South
Underpinning Naidu’s clarion call are the tensions that have been building up for years as South Indian states have outpaced their North Indian counterparts, achieving development parameters that are comparable to wealthier countries.
The fifth round of the National Family Health Survey, 2019-’21, says that India’s fertility rate is already below replacement levels at 2.0. A rate below 2.1 means a population may no longer be able to replace itself. But poorer states in the north have a higher fertility rate than the wealthier southern states, which have already seen their rates fall far below replacement levels.
In Andhra Pradesh, the fertility rate fell from 2.6 in 1992-’93 to 1.7 in 2019-’21.
As their populations fall, South Indian states have become heavily dependent on cheaper migrant labour from the north. At the same time, South Indian states have highlighted their disquiet about being diminished politically and financially after new allocations are made in Parliament and by the Finance Commission based on updated data from the next census. They also fear that the more populous North will come to dominate them culturally.
Over the years, there have been growing instances of linguistic chauvinism in the more developed states dependent on migrant labourers. In Maharashtra, migrant workers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in urban centres have been assaulted by members of parties claiming to espouse Marathi pride. In Karnataka, too, there has been a distinctive rise in linguistic chauvinism and language politics. Tamil Nadu has had a long history of anti-Hindi agitations and Dravidian parties have championed a distinct Tamil identity.
Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have not reported this brand of linguistic chauvinism so far. But fears about falling fertility rates signal an anxiety about a linguistic-cultural identity and way of life being diluted.
To reverse the situation, Naidu has said he will introduce a law to allow only those with at least two children to contest local body elections. This would reverse the current law that disbars people with more than two children from standing in these elections.
Researchers have pointed out that in other places, pro-natalist policies and even financial support have had little success in increasing fertility rates. “The simplest solution,” scholar Sonalde Desai told The Indian Express, “is [internal] migration.”
Gender, labour and migration
But the appeals to “have more children” fail to take into account the burden on women to reproduce and raise children as well as care for the elderly.
These ideas seek to bind women to reproductive labour that can serve the interests of the state and would reverse the huge gains that education, contraception and increased personal freedom have made to the lives of women. At the same time, the state benefits from a readymade supply of young labour whose potential it can harness as per its needs.
Simultaneously, these family responsibilities are supplemented by a care economy reliant on a female labour force. In India, it is largely made up of members of marginalised castes. In wealthier countries, it is immigrant labourers employed as domestic workers, caregivers for the elderly, nurses and healthcare workers. This has created a paradox where wealthy countries are dependent on immigrant labour yet harbour anti-immigrant sentiments.
In the United Kingdom, for instance, which has long struggled with a shortage of health and care workers, foreign workers in the sector are no longer allowed to bring their families to the country. The political thrust globally to “have more children” while fortifying borders against immigrants echoes the once-fringe perception that migrants from the Global South are a threat to “white” countries.
In India, the Hindutva conspiracy theory warning of an increase in the Muslim population stems from the same anxiety of Hindu cultural values being diluted.
These cultural connotations of population control, pro-natalism and changing demographics should not be ignored. Data journalist Rohan Kishore points out in the Hindustan Times that the nature of migration to the South Indian states is currently short-term and largely male – but that will change. More families from the North will begin to settle in the South.
What does this mean for the identity of migrant families in South Indian states? Will the child of migrant workers, who was born in the state they moved to and grew up speaking the local language, be considered a local or a migrant?
