Not to quibble, but forced sterilizations was really Sanjay Gandhi's idea, the younger son of Mrs. Gandhi. His over zealousness combined with lumpen elements of the Congress party was responsible for this tragedy. It was also done during the Emergency, quite an unprecendented political environment in post-independent India. Muslims may have been singled out because of the perception and backed by numbers that Muslims prefer large families notwithstanding polygamy. More recently the Hindu fundamentalists have used this as a device to argue that Muslims might just overtake the Hindus with their higher population rate of growth. The prescriptions Barkley mentions are correct. However, receptivity to education, family planning ideas, etc. varies by class, region, gender, and religion. Anecdotal evidence shows that poor, rural communities resist government intervention, while Muslims are less receptive family planning. On further probing, Muslim men are more cautious than women on limiting familiy size. But this varies significantly by region and social background. Anthony D'Costa On Fri, 23 Jun 1995 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Tavis Barr is only partly correct and wildly > exaggerating. The most notorious case of pop control > forced strilizations was in India in the mid-1970s > under Indira Gandhi of Muslims. At the same time she > was handing out Tavis's line in international fora > like the 1974 UN Population Conference in Bucharest. > It is important to distinguish population density > and pop growth rate. The former is strongly correlated > with per capita income, the latter strongly negatively > correlated. The mechanism of the "vicious cycle" > involves high dependency ratios associated with high > birth rates after infant mortality rates have declined. > Despite Tavis's assertions regarding what Third World > women really want, the evidence is overwhelming that > the very highest birth rates are occurring in countries > where women have low education and are very dominated > by men. Give them some education and control over their > lives and they will cut back having children, even in > rural poor countries with few out-of-home job opportunities. > Barkley Rosser > James Madison U. and UW-Madison >
