The Hindu editorial 15 July 2021.
Making welfare conditional is a stamp of coercion. On Sunday, the government of Uttar Pradesh released a “Population Policy” in which it stated its intention to bring the gross fertility rate in the State down from the existing 2.7 to 2.1 by 2026. To achieve this, the go- vernment says it will consider the enactment of a new piece of legis- lation. One such law that might be on the anvil is an ominous propo- sal released just days earlier by the State’s Law Commission (https://bit.ly/3xGH2TF). Incentives and disincentives This draft law, titled the Uttar Pra- desh Population (Control, Stabili- sation and Welfare) Bill, 2021, seeks to provide not only a series of incentives to families that adh- ere to a twochild norm, but also intends on disentitling families that breach the norm from bene- fits and subsidies. These recom- mendations are rooted in a culture of coercion. They are also steeped in myth. Experiences from across the world demonstrate that laws of this kind simply do...