Uttarakhand losing track of real issues, gets busy with 2-child condition | Opinion

Uttarakhand is set to have a new law that will bar many people from contesting panchayat elections, which will be held later this year. On Wednesday, the state assembly passed a bill that says anybody who has more than two children will not be allowed to contest panchayat elections.

The Uttarakhand Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2019, which awaits the Governor's approval before becoming a law, has also introduced minimum educational qualifications for panchayat elections--Class 10th pass for General category, Class 8 for women and SC/ST (men), and Class 5 for SC/ST (women). (For more details, read this explainer.)

The Trivendra Singh Rawat-led BJP government has said its intention is to promote family planning and ensure educated people are elected in the panchayat elections.

That is terrific.

The state government must be praised for its far-sightedness. Checking population explosion and bringing educated people in politics is important to tackle challenges that a poor and small state like Uttarakhand faces.

But, is good intention sufficient? Will it serve the proposed law serve its intended purpose if it is not backed with policies that target root causes rather than merely touch upon secondary aspects?

WHAT ABOUT ACTUAL PLANNING FOR FAMILY PLANNING?

The statement of objectives for the Bill states that the government's intention is to promote family planning. The simple question this statement raises is why is population explosion still a towering challenge for us.

The simple answer to this simple question is: there is no self-check on the number of babies a couple produces. Indians seem to have been mating like rabbits and the result is an ever-increasing population that exerts tremendous pressure on the ever-decreasing resources.

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Next question: How can births be controlled without following China's dictatorial ordain of no ifs-no buts, only one child allowed?

Answer: By encouraging people to opt for sterilisation and use condoms more often.

That's no rocket science. It's actually basic science and the learned minds in the Uttarakhand government surely would be aware of it.

Assuming this is true, how has Uttarakhand performed in promoting sterilisation and condom use?

The National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-4 (India's largest survey on the status of health), revealed that only 12.4 per cent men in rural and 22.7 per cent in urban areas of Uttarakhand use condoms. The state's overall condom use among married couples was found to be 16.1 per cent.

In terms of sterilisation, the central government last year informed Parliament that between 2014 and 2017, sterilisation cases dropped by nearly 13 per cent in Uttarakhand, against a national decrease of just 2.38 per cent.

Not just these three years, sterilisation cases have been decreasing in Uttarakhand over the last one decade. NFHS-4 showed that sterilisation among women decreased from 32.2 per cent in 2005-06 to 27.4 per cent in 2015-16.

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When it comes to male sterilisation, the survey revealed that only 0.7 per cent men in Uttarakhand opt for the birth control procedure.

These figures speak loud enough to point at the direction in which the government should be focussed on if it seriously intends to promote family planning and check population growth.

Barring people from contesting panchayat polls for having more than two kids is not exactly the focus these figures point towards.

To be fair to the state government, Uttarakhand has attained a total fertility rate of 2.1, which is globally considered to be the replacement fertility rate and is much desired. But to maintain this, Uttarakhand will have to promote sterilisation and convince men to use condoms more often.

Instead of the bill in discussion, an aggressive campaign on this front could effect better changes at the grassroots.

THE RARE CASES: TWINS AND TRIPLETS

Even in its present form, the bill passed by the Uttarakhand assembly needs to be revisited. The bill states that any person who has more than two kids, with the third child being born 300 days after the day the bill becomes law, will become ineligible to contest panchayat elections. (The proposed law won't have retrospective effect and won't affect those who currently have more than two children.)

The bill is however silent on what will happen if a woman gives birth to triplets in her first pregnancy or if she delivers twins in her second pregnancy. Will the woman and her husband be barred from contesting panchayat elections.

How many kids a woman will give birth to during pregnancy is not something that can be controlled by the parents.

Agreed, birth of twins and triplets is not common. But it still is a possibility and the rights of such parents are no less important than those of anybody else. The Bill should clarify what shall happen in such cases.

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Last year, a similar argument was made before the Supreme Court when it was hearing a petition challenging the two-child condition for panchayat polls in Odisha.

A tribal sarpanch had moved the court after he was disqualified because he had a third child few months after winning the panchayat polls. The court upheld his disqualification saying the intent of the legislature while framing the law was to bar any person having three living children from contesting panchayat polls.

Times of India in a report said that when the sarpanch's lawyer argued if parents of twins and triplets too would be barred from contesting and holding elected posts at the grassroots level, the Supreme Court said it would take an appropriate decision if and when a case of that nature came before it.

While brainstorming over the Bill, the Uttarakhand government should have taken the question of what happens to parents who deliver triplets or twints into consideration and introduced appropriate provisions.

Why let a matter go to the court and waste precious judicial time on something that could have been easily been addressed during the legislative process?

As for the government's intention to promote family planning, it's great. But it would have been better if it also had a concrete action plan to achieve them.

The author tweets at @mukeshrawat705 and can also be reached out at Facebook.