South vs north: India's Great Divide by RS Nilakantan

Author:RS, Nilakantan [RS, Nilakantan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

Rajasthan

166

Haryana

157

Bihar

146

Madhya Pradesh

142

Uttar Pradesh

138

Jharkhand

132

Gujarat

126

Uttarakhand

125

Maharashtra

123

Chhattisgarh

119

Assam

113

Karnataka

109

West Bengal

106

Punjab

104

Himachal Pradesh

98

Odisha

91

Goa

83

Tamil Nadu

75

Kerala

56

Source : Census 1971 and Census 2011, Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, Ministry of Home Affairs

Rajasthan, for example, had a population of 25.7 million in 1971. In 2011 its population was 68.6 million. Rajasthan’s population grew by 166 per cent in forty years, more than doubling in twenty-five years, even faster than Malthus’s prediction. Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh were all just short of doubling their respective populations, growing at near Malthus’s predicted rate during the same period.

While the states of the Indo-Gangetic plains experienced growth rates that saw the doubling of their populations every twenty-five years as late as during the late twentieth century – even after population control was declared a policy of national importance – peninsular India charted a different trajectory. Kerala’s population grew by only 56 per cent in those forty years, at roughly a third of the rate Malthus had predicted.

In other words, from one perspective, Rajasthan is Malthus’s nightmare, while Kerala is Goodwin’s dream. The two states had comparable populations in 1971. But in 2011, Rajasthan had more than twice the number of people as Kerala. They are no longer comparable states.

India’s Demographic Divergence

Many states in India have now stabilized their TFRs and have achieved below-replacement values. The states of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, for example, all had TFRs of 1.6 in 2017 (see Table 2). That’s lower than China’s TFR of 1.7, which was achieved in that country only after a generation of forced one-child policy.

Table 2: TFR by State and UTs

State

TFR

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