Gandhian Perspective on Population and Development

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About the Author Dr. A.K. Sharma, Professor of Sociology, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur began his academic career with a study of fertility and family planning in rural areas. He has worked at State Planning Institute Lucknow, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, and Operations Research Group New Delhi. He has rich experience of teaching and research in the field of sociology of population. His books include Social Inequality and Demographic Processes, Social Demography, and Developing the Underdeveloped A Socio-Psychological Study. His current research engagements are family planning evaluation, social values, neo-social movements and industrial and organizational sociology.

Preface Population is one of the most burning problems facing the developing societies. Rapid improvement in mortality in developing countries, in absence of corresponding fall in the birth rate, is causing a rapid growth of population Social scientists have shown that this growth of population is at the root of socio-economic problems, political conflicts and misery. In this situation all-out efforts are being made to plan population processes in general and reproductive process in particular. Planning involves understanding. Therefore, alternative constructs which are as diverse as mechanistic, bio-social, sociologistic, demographic and behaviouristic theories have been offered to describe, explain and predict demographic phenomena All of them have their merits and demerits. The present study attempts to discuss population and related issues in the Gandhian perspective.

It is noteworthy that in our age Gandhian theory has become an enigma There are extreme views on Gandhi's approach to population planning, ranging from total rejection of contraceptive methods to exploring ways of involving Gandhi Khadi organisations in delivering family planning methods at the grassroots level. In these circumstances it is very difficult to claim correctness of any one interpretation. Today we require an open debate on the philosophy of intervention Yet it should be said that Gandhian holistic theory of population has to be developed in the light of Gandhian thought in diverse areas such as economic development, gender relations, science and technology, urban-rural relations, etc. This study attmpts to explore them.

I am obliged to Drs. B.N. Patnaik and N.K. Sharma who helped in the preparation of this book in several ways. They always readily spared time for discussion and also for the routine work of looking at the manuscript. I am indebted to Drs. R.S. Misra, J.N. Misra, M.A. Ansari, P.N. Rastogi, Lila Krishnan and Raka Sharan for their various suggestions and encouragement. Thanks are also due to the research scholars, Clymes Augustine, Sahatrarashmi, Anurag Dwivedi, Manju Singh and Motilal Dash, for their suggestions. I am also grateful to Mr. Rajendra Nigam and Mr. D.K. Srivastava for secretarial help, for producing and reproducing various drafts and for doing errands. None of them is, however, responsible for errors, omissions and shortcomings which one may find in this book.

The financial support provided by the Quality Improvement Programme of the Ministry of Education and Social Welfare is gratefully acknowledged.

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