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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Making welfare conditional is a stamp of coercion -Suhrith Parthasarathy

Making welfare conditional is a stamp of coercion -Suhrith Parthasarathy

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published Published on Jul 15, 2021   modified Modified on Jul 15, 2021

-The Hindu

A simple reading of U.P.’s draft population control law is that it will grossly impinge on the right to reproductive freedom

On Sunday, the government of Uttar Pradesh released a “Population Policy” in which it stated its intention to bring the gross fertility rate in the State down from the existing 2.7 to 2.1 by 2026. To achieve this, the government says it will consider the enactment of a new piece of legislation. One such law that might be on the anvil is an ominous proposal released just days earlier by the State’s Law Commission.

Incentives and disincentives

This draft law, titled the Uttar Pradesh Population (Control, Stabilisation and Welfare) Bill, 2021, seeks to provide not only a series of incentives to families that adhere to a two-child norm, but also intends on disentitling families that breach the norm from benefits and subsidies. These recommendations are rooted in a culture of coercion. They are also steeped in myth. Experiences from across the world demonstrate that laws of this kind simply do not work. They invariably instil an attitude of discrimination, with a burden imposed disparately on the most vulnerable groups in society.

The draft Bill echoes the U.P. government’s new policy in claiming that the State’s ecological and economic resources are limited. According to it, unless population growth is regulated, the State will be unable to guarantee the provision of basic rights to all citizens. It also invokes some of the now-usual buzzwords: sustainable development, it says, cannot be achieved without government-imposed birth control.

To these ends, the draft postulates an array of measures. It promises public servants who undergo sterilisation and adopt a two-child norm several benefits. These include two increments during their service, subsidy towards the purchase of a house, maternity, or paternity leave, with full salary and allowances, as the case may be, for up to 12 months, and free health care and insurance coverage for the spouse.

This is as far as the “incentives” go. The draft Bill also contains a list of punishments. It terms these euphemistically as “disincentives”. A person who breaches the two-child norm will be debarred from securing the benefit of any government-sponsored welfare scheme and will be disqualified from applying to any State government job. Existing government employees who infringe the rule will be denied the benefit of promotion. And last, transgressing individuals will be prohibited from contesting elections to local authorities and bodies.

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The Hindu, 15 July, 2021, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/making-welfare-conditional-is-a-stamp-of-coercion/article35330850.ece?homepage=true


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