We the Monkeys....

I found an article in the paper dated Nov 17, 2010, The Times of India, very amusing indeed! It said that -Officials of the forest are considering Family Planning(Vasectomy) for messy monkeys who stray into the Malnad villages of Uttara Kannada, in order to contain their menace, destruction of arecanut, coconut, paddy and sugarcane crops.... Environmentalist Shylaja Gornamane, citing reasons for the serious problem, said monkeys are forced out of forests by people collecting minor forest produce like fruits.

Isn’t it so obvious who the real menace here really are! It is the overpopulated human race which doesn't even spare the fruits in the forest that is the food for the monkeys! . And then we want to "Family Plan" for the monkeys!

Here's some interesting statistics related to population. 'It took about 2 million years for the world population to become 1 billion (1830), 100 years for 2 billion (1930), 30 years for 3 billion (1960), 15 years for 4 billion (1986) and 11 years for 5 billion (1997). The world population stands at 6.3 billion (2000)and is estimated to be around four times of it around 22.5 billion in 2100. In context of India, Post -independent India in 35 years (1947-81)literally added a second India, i.e doubled it's population. When the population doubles, resources do not double and the critical condition in India is that it’s resources can no longer sustain this exploding population. In 2000 India’s population touched 1 billion mark whereas in 1901 it was around 238 million. Although India occupies only 2.4% of the world's land area, it supports over 15% of the world's population. The population growth rate of the world is around 1.1% and that of India is around 1.8%. To achieve population stabilization, the growth rate should be ideally brought below 0.5% which has been achieved by most developed countries.

What is the problem in our country that we cannot contain our population growth? There are actually some very funny reasons!!!

Catholic priests are advising parishioners to have three or more kids as the catholic population in India seems to be reducing. What a way to increase people in a particular faith. Just reproduce more!
One of the Hindu fundamentalist group Bajrangdal dal, during the religion linked riots in Orissa in sept 2008, was reportedly against conversions to Christianity mainly because it would reduce Hindus to a minority and how can that be allowed when according to Hindutva philosophy, India is a land of Hindus!
Muslims reportedly prefer having five or more kids primarily because they want to increase the muslim population!
This attitude of trying to preserve a good measure of one's own religious population is the peculiar bane of the Indian Society. Really now, is our individual religion the only thing worthy of preserving? The land on which we stand, the water that we drink, the air that we breathe, ...don't we owe something to it? How can we claim to love a God we do not see when we cannot love the environment that we can see is suffering from the plunder and exhaustion of resources, and excessive pollution solely because of over population and mindless development of the Human Race.

Now what can the common Indian do to check population growth. Of course reproduction is the right of every Individual, and of course we need not follow any stringent norms like China did. But lets just not let our choice be determined by our religious leanings…Education of women and higher age of marriage has proved to be successful in keeping a low population growth rate in Kerala so far, and it has been an example for the rest of India to follow. But education is often no match to personal religious persuasions. We have to decide our priority here. Lets not let false religious sentiments deviate us from our one true responsibility to humanity and to humanity's only provider…the amazing creation of god called Earth. We owe it to our God to preserve it's most beautiful creation, the Earth, no not the umpteen religions which man created just so he won't die of boredom with nothing to argue about.....