Dare to be Gloomy!

It is true that the indices have never looked as good as they do now whether they relate to health or wealth. Gross Domestic Product, a generally accepted measure of prosperity, has grown decade after decade in developed and developing countries. Humans are living longer, new cures are being discovered for old and new diseases and delightful gizmos are being invented every week. No doubt there are problems in the world, like global warming and declining reserves of essential commodities. But that is nothing new and several authority figures led by Bill Gates, the most successful entrepreneur and the richest man in the world, assure us that science will solve the problems as it has done for last two hundred years and the life on the planet will continue to get better. However, the dominant sense among the populace is not optimism but the doom and gloom, thanks to the dire predictions of almost total destruction within our children’s lifetime being broadcast on the media by experts from various disciplines. The future looks bleak to many thoughtful people, not necessarily for themselves but for the mankind as a whole. What makes these people so gloomy?

There are many reasons for being despondent. Leaving aside environmental and commodity concerns which science may resolve, one may worry about close to home issues like the only superpower threatening to collapse under the weight of government, corporate and personal debts and ideological warfare between the polarized citizenry, pervasive cultural and moral vacuum and poor quality of schools where we teach what kids will learn rather than what they should learn. But most frightening are two interrelated issues: the growing population and increasing gulf between the rich and the poor. More humans inhabit our planet now than have lived cumulatively since the beginning of time. Not only the numbers are larger, each individual expects higher comfort level, i.e. more food, more clothes, better shelter, more gadgets. The growing population is even more of a concern because the birth rate is highest in already densely populated countries and is not declining enough to make up for increasing longevity. What exacerbates the problem is that the poor and the illiterate in the villages and shantytowns of these countries have the largest families. The children in such families are malnourished and grow up with physical and mental handicaps. Most of these children do not go to schools but form pools of cheap child labour which is essential in some old industries like carpet weaving and new ones like electronic recycling. They grow into illiterate adults who can barely do the menial very poorly paid jobs when they can find them. Thus, the number of adults who have no chance to find adequate means of livelihood in the age of growing technical complexity is growing rapidly in spite of rapid economic growth around them.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other charities are doing commendable work in developing countries to improve the living conditions, particularly nutrition and medical care. However, very little attention is paid to the root problem: increasing population. Voluntary birth control does not work among the poor and illiterate who do not know how to use the devices that they can’t afford anyway. Forcing this issue doesn’t work in a democratic country as the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi discovered to her dismay in India in the seventies. As if that was not enough in itself, the religious scruples hold back the governments and social workers from working on birth control. There does not seem to be any will among the leaders to face the issue of population explosion.

The developing countries face the conundrum: their economies are growing at a good rate; more people are living better but due to growing population the number of poor people is also increasing. The overall wealth is growing but so is the concentration of wealth in a fewer hands. The average growth rates hide the fact that not only the poor are poorer, there are more of them. The growing disparity among well off and poor causes tension in the populace. The civil unrest in Thailand, Indonesia and Pakistan are daily news stories. What is generally not know is that vast areas of India are in a state of siege by rebels supported by poor farmers in the rural areas. News of unrest in China leak out with alarming regularity in spite of the totalitarian regime with complete control over the media. The situation is more dangerous than most people realize because lethal weapons are now available everywhere to any one who wants to use them. It is not only El Qaeda who is looking for weapons of mass destruction, insurgent groups in armed conflicts everywhere are trying to acquire the most destructive weapons they can find and they are not reluctant to use them. The most depressing thought is that the violent protest groups will continue to multiply and become stronger because the root problem – growing poverty – will be with us till the population declines to an optimum level and no one has any idea when and how that will happen.

If the optimists want to lift the cloud of gloom, they could start by suggesting plausible ways to reduce the human population. Let us face it; if the humans won’t do it, the nature will. And nature will be much harsher and indiscriminate than humans.