Social Balance and Population growth control
Posted on February 26th, 2013

Jay Deshabandu

Population growth in our country did not catch much attention in the eyes of political and educated circles. Sri Lanka grew from two million in 1871 to over twenty million today. Given the size of the land area in the country, the population density is too high to sustain the economic development we see today. The country could go into more difficulties if the population growth is not controlled.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ As with the population growth, the conflicts between ethnic groups have already begun to mushroom. We now even have conflicts and violence when erecting places of warship, be it a temple, church or a mosque.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ We can and should learn from ChinaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s one child policy. China has controlled its population growth and it has achieved a remarkable economic growth since then.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  It would become second in population to India by 2020.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ But, we cannot do what exactly the giant China did. We need to create consensus among the public locally and internationally on the negative consequences of exploding population growth.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Otherwise, as usual, our opposition political parties that do anything to put the government down would use my suggestion as a tool to fool more people to get the votes.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  Even they could get the EU and US to interfere with our own internal problems; and, UNHRCƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s boss Naveen Pillai would use religious freedom and human right cards to discredit the government so that our country would be dragged to suffer and become a spring board for India to control China!

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Who knows, the US could bring another resolution in the UN that is fast becoming a resolution addict against Sri Lanka.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Recently, some Buddhist monks are wrongly encouraging Sinhalese to have more children because other minorities have created factories of making babies, specially the Muslims in Sri Lanka. The mosques are providing necessary help to poor families who cannot take responsibility for their own children.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  Once when I was in Sri Lanka, I saw one family was sharing two eggs among six children, each of which sharing one third of an egg.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ One must be held responsible for making many children, if not have money and ability to take care of his children, irrespective of his religion. No one should be encouraged to make babies if at least he cannot find food for himself.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Sri Lankan government should develop policies on the number of children in a family that would be supported by the government. Because Sri Lanka provides with free education from the primary schoolsƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  to the tertiary or university education, with free health and host of other free goodies to any poor family, it should have a cap on the number of children it would support at least on free education!ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ In the past a government minister argued that in a similar sense, if someone is an alcoholic, for example, the government should not pay for the bill on his health problems.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Similarly, if someone is making a lot of children for whatever reason, he should be responsible for paying and sending his children to schools and hospitals.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 

 

6 Responses to “Social Balance and Population growth control”

  1. Dilrook Says:

    I take a different view.

    Sri Lanka’s population growth rate is just around 1%. TFR (Total Fertility Rate) is 2.1 which is the exact TFR needed to maintain the population. One child policy if succeeds drops this to around 1.0. Therefore there is no population explosion as such. Due to very high (relative to other LDCs), life expectancy, there will be a huge economic burden on the fewer (in percentage terms) workers in future as the population ages.

    Sri Lanka’s population related problems are caused by South Indian and Maldives illegal immigrants, and, certainly not by the natives. The right strategy is to stop this completely and agree with India to send them back on cordial terms. Uninhabited areas in the north and east must be developed and people can be settled there.

    The next problem is the very high population growth rate of Sri Lankan Tamils and Muslims. This must be curtailed. Reduction in emmigration of Tamils after the war is a concern in population matters.

    Economic clout of the Sinhalese must be increased by state interventions, state owned commerically run enterprises, increasing food production and intake and regulating foreign religious activities. Sinhalese population growth rate must be increased as the wise monk has suggested concurrent to these other measures.

    In anarticle to Lankaweb I have presented information prepared by two academics of the population growth rates of communities. It was presented to a UN body. It identifies the wide disparity between ethnic groups.

    Addressing these specific problems with specific, targeted solutions can achieve results. A broadbrush approach does not work.

  2. R.M.W Says:

    One Child to one family the only option to avoid ending like Pakistan or Bangladesh.

  3. Ancient Sinhalaya Says:

    Almost all Sinhalese wives are employed and have no time to bring up many children, making it effectively automatic birth control while muslim women are not working and keep giving birth year after to swell their numbers. Ours is a not a rich country and the State has to pay their education and healthcare. It is a massive burden and only way to curb this is to stop providing free education and free healthcare after 2 children. This will have a lot of benefits to all the people concerned plus the added advantage of producing less and less Mother Lanka haters home and abroad. The Government should bring in new laws before Sri Lanka joins the ex-Buddhist countries such as Pakisthan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Afganisthan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran.

  4. Ben Silva Says:

    Well done Jay for bringing this important matter into the open. I can visibly see that during 40 years, the green areas have shrunk. Jungles converted to fields etc. Excessive population would cause food problems, hospital problems, school problems, trafficx problems and so on Certainly population growth of Muslims need to be minitored and controlled. One child policy may be the best option, but with this social care provision need to be improved so that there is care for the provision of elderly and the disabled.
    Ancient Sinhalaya mentioned ex Buddhist countries. My fear is Sri Lanka may end up as an ex Sinhal;a country, as we have lost the North, East, Hill country and now even the capital, due to the Sinhalese not being fit to survive. My analysis may be wrong, but when I looked at ex Buddhist countries, the facts pointed out to the religious beliefs of those people being made passive, lethargic and noncompetitive by Buddhism. If at all,

  5. Ben Silva Says:

    Well done Jay for bringing this important matter into the open. I can visibly see that during 40 years, the green areas have shrunk. Jungles converted to fields etc. Excessive population would cause food problems,energy problems, hospital problems, school problems, traffic problems and so on Certainly population growth of Muslims need to be monitored and controlled. One child policy may be the best option, but with this social care provision need to be improved so that there is care for the provision of elderly and the disabled.
    Ancient Sinhalaya mentioned ex Buddhist countries. My fear is Sri Lanka may end up as an ex Sinhala country, as we have lost the North, East, Hill country and now even the capital, due to the Sinhalese not being fit to survive. My analysis may be wrong, but when I looked at ex Buddhist countries, the facts pointed out to the religious beliefs of those people being made passive, lethargic and noncompetitive by Buddhism. If at all, Japanese Buddhism is the best to follow as they have fine tuned their thinking to be competitive, to win, to optimise desires. Let me mention Nalanda again to indicate what Buddhism did to people at Nalanada. When attacked by Muslims, Nalanda Buddhists did not run away or fight back, believing that it is due to Karma. Buddhism in short prepared them for self destruction, made them vulnerable to be wiped out by competitors in any field, due to the passive thinking of Buddhism. Nalanda experience is actually across the countries in the silk route and hence ex Buddhist. After NALANADA EXPERIENCE, iNDIANS LEARNT AND bUDDHISM DID NOT REVIVE IN iNDIA. If we want to avoid being ex Sinhala, we need to think fresh and learn critical thinking rather than hang on to ancient beliefs that will wipe us out.
    Buddhism is theonly relegion that promote its believers to give up desires, run away to escape Dukke and seek Nirvana or extinction. What we should have been taught is how to become competitive, to survive and win and face challenges and use thinking to overcome problems rather than run away.

  6. mjaya Says:

    Ben Silva’s motive is clear.

    Do whatever you can to discredit the history of the Sinhalese.

    The political face of the planet changes constantly. How many Christians live in the birth place of Christ today (i.e. the Middle East)? Very few, the Middle East is almost entirely Muslim.

    Had someone said that Christianity was a “weak religion incapable of defending itself” (Jesus Christ did say to offer your other cheek to someone who slaps you) then there would have had nothing worth defending. Had the Muslims had petrodollars back then, there would be plenty of people like Ben Silva preaching this anyway! The result, no crusades and the whole of Europe would have ended up Muslim. But we all know that it wasn’t the case.

    We all know how that Buddhism is the life blood of the Sinhalese people. We have seen throughout history Kings like Dutugemunu, Walgamba fighting to protect Buddhism. Buddhism by all means discourages violence but does not forbid self defense. We all know that the LTTE was defeated by a majority Sinhalese Buddhist military (no disrespect to the countless non-Buddhists who fought against the LTTE). Buddhist monks always give blessings to those who defend our country!

    These are some of the things Ben Silva’s highly selective memory doesn’t mention!

    So lets get our priorities right. No one bothered about philosophical issues when fighting the LTTE. Buddhist monks went to the front lines to provide blessings to our soldiers. Now we have a priority to defeat Jihadis in Sri Lanka.

    We should not be surprised about the sudden emergence of characters like Ben Silva when Buddhists are rallying against Jihadis.

    During the time o the LTTE there were those who preached to us that as Buddhists we should be non-violent. Ben Silvas are the other side of the coin. Either way they help the enemy…………luckily we didn’t bother about such people and defeated the murderous LTTE with the full blessings of Buddhism!

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