By S Paul
Vote bank is the available numbers of eligible voters in a nation. It is the favourite bank of our politicians to allow sowing and reaping at election time. In order to attract the numbers into this bank, our politicians use various tricks such as promises, token monetary help, some well publicised social welfare projects, freedom to proliferate and, of course, the most lucrative ploy of reservations and quotas. The pundits of electioneering preach that a vote is a very powerful weapon in the hands of a citizen. The citizens know how to use their vote power to make their presence felt; especially, if they are of the privileged categories like the Minorities, the SC/ST, the OBC, et al. Their contribution to nation building is the least concern. These pampered lots only add to the burden of our exchequer, built-up so painstakingly by taxpayers and our financial experts. Remove or lessen this burden and provide a driving leadership our nation will rise up by leaps and bounds and can become more cohesive and secure. Yet the most significant factor in our democratic governance is this vote bank which too is increasing by leaps and bounds.
As per the data available with the Election Commission, over 2 crore young voters are added every election year. The young voters are the result of population growth which forms a part of about 15 percent annual growth in population. Increase in youth vote bank benefits only one category of people in our populace: that of politicians. They justify this by boasting about developing a great national resource. The youth as a national resource can be a great asset only if wisely directed and involved in nation building, but it is also very explosive and gullible. For instance, they are very sensitive to the term ‘Unemployment’. The provisioning of ‘occupations’ for them then becomes a prime concern of the governments; resulting in more promises – more diversion of funds. Therefore, for the nation the increased population becomes an additional burden for governance. Hence, for sustained progress in its all-round growth, the nation must consider controlling numbers of its human resource. Unless the government plans to produce them for export or force them to become immigrants to foreign lands.
It has been proved time and again that quantity does not prevail over quality. Quality has invariably ruled over quantity. History is replete with such instances; our own era of slavery is an example. Quality citizens mean well educated, healthy, well provided for with resources and opportunities and a morally disciplined set of people. In our kind of present democratic system, we inadvertently let the quantity prevail over quality by letting the unchecked quantity provide us with ‘votes’. Thus this favoured lot among us upset our systems by demanding more, by sabotaging the government efforts, by creating hurdles such as ‘rasta roko’- ‘chakka jaam’ – forcible closure of public routines called ‘Bandh’ and by being manipulated by foreign vested interests. All this weakness in our nation can be brought down by having fewer numbers to control i.e. population control. So far, our governments have only been urging citizens to voluntarily adopt family planning. A few conscientious ones do and reap the benefits. But the majority does not oblige, and they are mainly the minority and reserved categories.
We are a nation with the largest number of political parties in the world. China, which is a bit more populated than us, has only one; but of course, theirs is not a democratic nation with no popular elections. They too had strictly imposed a ‘one child’ rule. Their population reduced considerably and decades later they relaxed this rule but by then China has gained a lot and made their place as one of the most successful economies of the world, almost equalling the USA. Study the data given here; the total number of political parties in 1951-52, when our first general elections were held and the population was about 36.11 crores, were only 53. In the general elections of 2024, there were 744 political parties with the population at 140 crores plus. The more we are, the more divided we get; consequently, our nation’s progress gets pulled back. It may be argued that greater the number more the tax collection. Even though personal Income Tax and taxation through consumer goods is one of the major revenue generators for the government, it is the corporate taxes that provide the major share of revenue to not only to the government but to the political parties too. Therefore, the benefits for the nation accrued from having quality in our population far exceed that from quantity.
Hence, in the interest of our nation’s strength, affluence and unity, we have to consider controlling our population by enacting laws. I feel the UCC is the right forum to consider bringing in such a legally sanctioned restriction. The scope of UCC may be extended to include such a control. The rule of ‘hum do hamare do’ may be made the legally enforced norm. Family planning ought to become more intense by being imposed under a compulsory national health movement. Polygamy/ polyandry should be strictly banned and be punishable. Having a third child should take away the voting right of the head of the family and also some concessions provided by the government to the low-income group citizens. Having a fourth child should debar the whole family from their voting rights and more concessions. Children born out of wedlock or orphaned should be adopted by the government or registered NGOs and nurtured as national assets by providing special training and educating them as per their aptitude. Biological parents of these destitute should be found and punished severely and debarred from voting. China has proved that such a control may appear to be harsh, but carefully nurtured, these youth can provide the nation with world standard assets in sports, in industries, sciences and even in education. I feel it would also take out the sting from that echelon of our society which dreams of over-running the nation by their sheer numbers.
