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Video Information: 25.01.23, IIT-Ropar, Greater Noida
Context:
~ Overpopulation is a crime today.
~ Overpopulation is the biggest problem in India.
~ What are ways to reduce fertility rate?
~ Where are we heading as a country?
~ How are we responsible for the climate crisis?
~ Government policies for population control.
~ India will soon be most populous in the world.
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...
Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...
~~~~~
Video Information: 25.01.23, IIT-Ropar, Greater Noida
Context:
~ Overpopulation is a crime today.
~ Overpopulation is the biggest problem in India.
~ What are ways to reduce fertility rate?
~ Where are we heading as a country?
~ How are we responsible for the climate crisis?
~ Government policies for population control.
~ India will soon be most populous in the world.
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Good evening Sir. Sir, my question is on population. We were just talking about it and in a couple
00:11of your answers previously you've mentioned about the population and you also touched
00:18upon that point that we have recently surpassed China according to the most recent estimate
00:26at the beginning of this very year and currently India's population stands at around 1.4-1.2
00:33billion people. So, by this estimate we are the most populous country in the world and
00:41we are going to add the maximum number of people from now onwards to the very good amount
00:47of time and the population projection says that by 2050-2060 we will keep growing. So,
00:55in many of your videos, many of your talks you have always mentioned that you know how
01:01population is at the very root of so many societal problems, so many environmental problems,
01:08so many problems related to the planets and we see this figure and that too for a country
01:15like India which is very unprepared in terms of many things. So, what is the way forward?
01:21What should we do? Is there any important role of policy makers and if we are at this
01:29level of population, can it ever be an advantage in this bleak atmosphere? So, that's the question.
01:38Advantage to whom? Advantage to whom? You will have a larger number of people proceeding
01:52to occupy territory from a neighbouring country. How can overpopulation be an advantage? Advantage
02:04to whom? Why? In what sense? So, that's not even imaginable to think of overpopulation as an
02:20advantage. Overpopulation is not merely a problem, it's a crime. It's the most dastardly crime today.
02:32How to control? There have to be both positive and negative measures. We very well know that
02:47when populations get more educated, the fertility rates drop. We also know that when there are
03:01better medical services and education is guaranteed and there is social security and greater participation
03:15of women in the workforce, again the fertility rates drop. And all these are great things to
03:24have irrespective of their effect on the fertility rates. We want people to be educated even if that
03:32does not decrease the fertility rate. We want women to be empowered and to be financially
03:40independent even if that does not decrease the fertility rate. So, all these are virtuous goals
03:48that come with the added benefit that they have a sobering effect on the fertility rate.
03:56So, these are the positive measures we must take. On the negative side, on the disincentivizing side,
04:07you must not be subsidizing people who choose to have more than two kids. The government must say
04:17on one hand I am ensuring that the two kids that you have will have great health and great education
04:26and I stand as the underwriter. We will provide schools and we will provide hospitals. So,
04:37once we have done that we do not want you to have a third kid and if you have a third kid
04:42then we stop all the subsidies or at least reduce the subsidies. And there are so many
04:54benefits that citizens draw from the government and if you come from a disadvantaged or impoverished
05:09section then there are additional benefits you get from the government. So, the government does
05:16have a significant handle on individual decision making by using the financial relationships that
05:33the government has with the individual. The government can very strongly disincentivize
05:42the individual from having kids, more kids than two let's say. Equally if you decide to have no
05:56kids or just one kid, there should be material benefits. There should be immaterial benefits
06:05as well. You should be encouraged, incentivized in a financial way, also in a social way. Why
06:16should you not be presented with an award? Why not? You are setting an example. So,
06:27we confer this award on you. Deshmit or Samaj Bandhu, some kind of an award and that couple
06:38then deserves to be highlighted in media and the government controls a lot of media. Don't
06:44we know that? Once a couple decides we are not going to have kids, let the couple be
06:51presented as a role model. So, there is a lot that can be done and you do not need to take
07:04draconian measures like at the time of emergency. You do not need to forcefully sterilize people.
07:13That is not even needed. There are so many other ways you can both incentivize and
07:21de-incentivize people. But for this to happen, you need a government that can make this happen
07:33and for that to happen, you need people that can vote that kind of government to power. For
07:44that to happen, you need to have an agency that can first of all educate people towards the peril
07:54of overpopulation. That agency should be able to challenge the long-standing cultural notions.
08:06If a woman does not procreate, her life is wasted. The purpose of life is to have a full
08:19nest and a full nest is defined by the abundance of kids in it. You are a great person if you are
08:35a great mother. If you have been a great mother, you are a veritable goddess. You can be worshipped.
08:48So, the population will first of all have to be educated in a spiritual way so that we realize
08:58that procreation is not the purpose of life, especially not the woman's life and that time,
09:10golden time, peak time, precious time spent taking care of the babies is not a particularly
09:21great investment. Come on, let's be bold and honest enough to say that upfront. There is
09:31no great virtue or value in changing diapers and washing diapers and catering to all kinds
09:42of animalistic needs of an infant. There is nothing great about that. It does not even
09:49require a person of high consciousness to do all that. Even animals do all that. So,
09:59let the woman know very clearly that if she is wasting years and years behind a baby,
10:05she is actually wasting her life. And she has been conditioned to very coolly say,
10:21now there is the baby. So, how can I continue working? Six or seven months before childbirth,
10:30some of them take leaves and then they don't return to the workplace for the next four,
10:41five years, sometimes even ten years. Sometimes they never return at all.
10:45They need to be very clearly told without mincing words, even if it hurts and offends,
10:57that they are wasting their life. The patriarchal society has placed such a great value on
11:11motherhood that women do not feel bothered at all, harmed at all, or ashamed at all.
11:27Just wasting all their life running behind kids. They feel they are doing something very
11:40honorable, very respectable, very valuable. I am not saying you should just pick the newborn
11:49and drop it somewhere and get rid of it. But you should know very well that time spent on the
11:59newborn, time spent on child raising is not a particularly great investment. And you have
12:07limited time as a human being. So, even if your biology and your physical tendencies demand that
12:19you must have a kid, please keep the number of kids to a minimum so that the wastage is minimized.
12:25The time spent on one kid is enough investment. Do not spend more time on more kids. What are
12:42you doing all the time? Think of the life of a new mother. Think of her life. How is her life
12:59different from the life of any other female mammal that has newly given birth? Think of a
13:22buffalo or a goat. All the time they have to just look after the kid and they cannot read,
13:32they cannot take care of themselves. If you are a sports person, your sports are gone. If you are
13:41a traveller, you cannot travel anymore. You cannot even visit the cinema halls. You cannot
13:52go shopping. You cannot even sleep with abandon. All the time you have to be tuned in. Can you go
14:14and sit in a library and spend dedicated eight hours there? You can't do that. Not for two months,
14:22not for four months, you cannot do that for next many years. What about your dance classes? What
14:38happened to your swimming schedule? You were a champion swimmer. What happened to your tennis
14:50matches? You were so fond of challenging everybody around. And you had a great volley and a great
15:01backhand. What happened to all that? And you used to sit and continuously think and meditate on the
15:15great questions of life. You were thinking, who am I? Why do I exist? What is meant by nations?
15:24Why is society organized the way it is? Those moments used to be your internal bread and butter.
15:34Now can you spend those peaceful moments in quietness and solitude? Can you do that? Then
15:42why are you so eager to pop a baby? The baby is the master, the mother is the servant. That's
16:02obvious for many long years. And that's a biological connection. And the same biological
16:10connection will mean that once the baby grows up, he'll have his own life. First three years of his
16:17or her life, when the mother invests practically everything she has into the baby, the baby
16:23doesn't have any memory. Nobody remembers the first three years of his life. And that's when
16:30your mother has been doing the most for you. And you don't remember that you cannot remember that.
16:40The baby is now eight or ten and he's already building a separate universe of his own. Does
16:48it not happen? He's already hiding things from the mother. And the mother sacrifices
16:54herself totally for the baby. Why is the mother so stupid? The mother is a human being first of
17:00all, right? The gender comes later. First of all, you are a human consciousness. You are not born
17:05to raise kids. You are born to get liberated. I look at women. On one hand, I feel bad, I feel
17:29empathetic. On the other hand, I feel furiously angry. You are responsible for your own wretched
17:40state. Don't you know what you're doing? You're hurting yourself all the time. You are allowing
17:47yourself to get exploited. Why do you do this to yourself? The scholarly student becomes a wet
18:04nurse. And the baby is shitting all the time, urinating all the time. Was that supposed to be
18:20your destiny? Urine and stools? And breastfeeding? That's what you were born for? Women's
18:45emancipation has to be the thing that drives population control. If the woman is liberated,
18:57the population cannot explode. If population explodes, that's a clear indication of women's
19:04misery. The more miserable, ignorant and enslaved women are, the more you will find populations
19:16exploding. See, practically, man has zero role in the process. Let's face it. He impregnates,
19:35and gets away paying a very small price. In fact, in some sense, his own beastly tendencies
19:48get satiated. Now the woman is confined to the house. So, she has been now domesticated.
20:05Like a pet mammal. Now she becomes even more easier to control.
20:18And the man puffs up, now I am the provider, the sole provider. You stay at home, I am providing,
20:22you see. You leave your job now, you are pregnant. So, I am the sole provider. And
20:28if you are the sole provider, then you become the master, obviously.
20:31By impregnating the woman, the man becomes her master. And the woman does not see that.
20:42Just emotion, emotion.
20:47Emotional foolishness.
21:01And the man goes out to work, and he visits places, and broadens his experience,
21:07and learns of things, and grows as an individual. And what is the woman doing?
21:12Cleaning shit. And breastfeeding. And preparing bottles.
21:19And rushing to doctors.
21:33And the man is growing, in terms of knowledge, in terms of money, in terms of power.
21:42And the woman is rotting at home. That's population for you.
21:49And on top of that, the man will say, you see, look at how magnanimous I am.
21:59I am the sole breadwinner. You two sit at home, you and the baby. And I provide for both of you
22:06idlers. What good are the two of you doing at home? Just sitting comfortably. And I am the one
22:14who is going out there working and providing for you two slothful people. Doing nothing, good for nothing.
22:25But she has her moments of bliss. She looks at the baby,
22:48and forgets her trauma. She says, see, can there be higher bliss
22:55than the smiling face of my little one? Yes, ma'am.
23:06Knowledge, and consciousness, and realization, and power.
23:15These are much, much higher joys than the smiling face of your baby.
23:45On the contrary, we have girls who break up because the man says, I do not want babies.
24:12I want you to lead a full and free life directed towards knowledge and liberation.
24:19I do not want you to be saddled with babies.
24:23And the girl breaks up. She says, what kind of man? Probably impotent.
24:35Six weeks into the relationship, and she starts clamoring for marriage.
24:44Six weeks into the marriage, she starts clamoring for
24:52cultural conditioning. The ideal desi girl.
24:57And there would be so many who would actually be celebrating that we are ahead of China now.
25:27Yes, literacy is contraceptive. But wisdom is the best contraceptive.
25:57So this is exactly what I wanted to point out, what you just said, because I was looking at
26:16some of the numbers. And this is very true that as the literacy is going up, the TFR is falling.
26:23And the fertility rate will continue to fall for India also. But still, we will keep growing
26:27because of the sheer momentum which has already been built. But what's interesting is, so I was
26:32just reading that in the UK, in 22, just post pandemic, the lockdown era, the fertility rate
26:40has gone up after a decade. It was 2012 or something, it was kept on falling slowly, slowly,
26:47slowly, slowly. It was some 1.4 something and it has become 1.51 something in 22. And there's
26:55nothing to say about the literacy rate of a developed nation like Britain. So point is that,
27:00as you just very well mentioned, that education itself is not enough. Given the time, freedom and
27:07the thought to wonder, people did enter into this sort of a thing in which they thought that
27:16they are free enough to have more children. And they utilize this time to do exactly. And this
27:21figure is also true for many other countries. Maybe they didn't reverse the fertility.
27:25Also, one more thing. It's not just that the COVID period gave them a lot of free time,
27:32leisure time and hence the fertility rates went up. It's not just the time factor.
27:40Something additional as well. Fear factor.
27:45The more afraid you are, the more you are likely to reproduce. The more insecure you feel,
27:54the more desperately you want to have kids. And wisdom, yes, and wisdom, spirituality alone can
28:03drive away your core fear. So in spite of being educated, if you are somebody terrified,
28:13you will still procreate more.
28:26I could speak endlessly for hours. We have yet not talked of the impact of population,
28:34human population, the population of this one species on the populations of the millions
28:42of other species, billions of other species. We have not talked of what it means to have
28:48one additional Homo sapiens on this planet. What that means to the other species.
28:56What that means to the planet itself and its entire ecosystem. We just talked
29:05keeping human beings at the center, especially the female human being at the center.
29:12But if we could widen the perspective, you will find human population is the biggest curse on
29:20this planet. The day a human baby is born, entire existence weeps and mourns.
29:32The day a human kid is born, rest assured, entire existence is weeping and goes into mourning.
29:41That is the impact of one human birth. And still, I don't know, it is all very appalling.
29:57I will stop here. Thank you very much. Thank you.