Saturday, October 29, 2005

an altruistic detour

The following is something that i've wanted to express for some time..and now is the time...its the result of an analysis of India's problems and a solution for the same...as a consequence of my thoughts, i have come to the conclusion that each and every issue that the country faces can be traced to our 'bursting at the seams' population..how? let me explain in view of known problems:

CORRUPTION : we're in the top 10 in the world when it comes to this...lets analyse..corruption originates in the minds of a few...these few are ubiquitous...every state/nation has them. It is not corruption as such, but the proliferation of corruption that decides these rankings...proliferation of corruption is a vicious circle in india wth population being its originator...every public activity in india involves a queue..where there is a queue..there is impatience...and where there is impatience, the devil creeps in....seeds of bribery sown. again, with such a huge population around, cases of corruption never come to light and this emboldens more people to join the bandwagon..to the extent that bribery in india is the norm...our judiciary is so overburdened that, with little power and the right contacts and some more bribes, a person can be confident of shaking loose a corruption charge on him/her....to sum it up, corruption dwells coz noone finds out and thats thanx to our population

POVERTY: no groundbreaking theories required here...we are too many and the government doesn't have enough...and since the poor don't have enough, they produce more chidren hoping to gather more of what is around...vicious circle again...

CRIME : some are born criminals..forget them.majority are made by their environment..an environment which lacks in everything, even basic...places of living are overcrowded, places of work/business are overcrowded, means of transport are overcrowded...when there is a crowding, there is friction; friction creates frustration; frustration harbours anger and anger is unleashed as crime...

ILLITERACY : sure, the government assures free education, but it cannot bring the children to school. that is to be done by altruistic individuals and social organizations. they are less in no: and why not? most people who are into social service arethe ones who don't have to bother abt an income for a living. the others cannot support themselves with just the blessings of the target group...as far as i believe, in developed countries, there is a lot of govt: fund involved in every conceivable sphere of activity, such that it becomes a viable career path as well. here only the truly altruistic can do that...it shows.


SOLUTION: the following is inspired by a piece of writing i happened to read some time back. can't remember the term, hence am rechristening the concept as POPULATION CONDITIONING..so what is it and how is it different from population control and how can it be more effective?
population control refers to curbing the birth rate by whatever means..its not logical according to the poor as such and the logic that is fails to percolate down to them; so it fails mostly
population conditioning is different. it refers to concentrating on the minds of the population and conditioning them to realise that 'the fewer, the better'...but,by indirect means....by creating employment : with employment men can forget worying about supporting their families, by concentrating on female education: the enlightened woman can influence her man...together we have a 'susceptible to other issues' man and a woman
'who knows the other issues'...that may do the trick....this is my version of the concept, hope its not full of blunders

DISCLAIMER:what i have attempted to present are justifications apart from the normal; the cliches definitely hold true. can't think of any other major problem at the moment, but am sure, any that is suggested can easily be traced to our population explosion.........also, i have based what i hav written on my feelings. many of you may find it to be silly/wrong/whatever...please air ur views/critiques...it'll be a learning for me and that's important. thank you.

2 comments:

  1. hey.. wel written piece.. but it comes to be presented as a whole lot of personal convictions.. as i was reading this .. i was reminded of freakonomics... read it... it'll make you ask a lot more questions.. thats the route..

    cheers

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  2. Maybe you'll like to read someone like Atanu Dey. Check two of his posts:
    http://are.berkeley.edu/~atanu/blog/archives/000143.html
    and
    http://are.berkeley.edu/~atanu/blog/archives/000147.html
    to start with.
    Unfortunately, he has stopped writing now; maybe he has turned into one of those rare commodities: an economist who works for a living.

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