The Enigma of Kerala

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Organizers knew the campaign was working when letters from the newly literate began arriving in government offices, demanding paved roads and hospitals.

Many people, sincerely alarmed by the world's ever-expanding population, have decided that we need laws to stop the growth, that, sad as such coercion would be, it's a necessary step. And they have some cases to point to--China, for instance, where massive government force probably did manage to contain a population that would otherwise have grown beyond its ability to feed itself. But as that country frees itself from the grip of the communists, the pent-up demand for children may well touch off a massive baby boom. Compulsion 'does not work except in the very short term,' writes Paul Harrison in his book The Third Revolution (Viking Penguin, 1993), and his case in point is India, which tried to raise its rate of sterilization dramatically in the 1970s. To obtain recruits for the 'vasectomy camps' erected throughout the country, the government withheld licenses for shops and vehicles, refused to grant food ration cards or supply canal water for irrigation, and in some cases simply sent the police to round up 'volunteers.' It worked, in a sense: In 1976, 8.3 million Indians were sterilized. But Indira Gandhi lost the next election largely as a result, the campaign was called off, and it was 'ten years before the number of couples using modern contraception rose again to their 1972-73 peaks,' Harrison writes. India's population, which grew by 109 million in the 1960s and 137 million in the 1970s, grew 160 million in the 1980s. That is the population of two Mexicos, or one Eisenhower-era United States.

Kerala--and a scattered collection of other spots around the world, now drawing new attention in the wake of the United Nations' Cairo summit on population--makes clear that coercion is unnecessary. In Kerala the birth rate is 40 percent below that of India as a whole and almost 60 percent below the rate for poor countries in general. In fact, a 1992 survey found that the birth rate had fallen to replacement level. That is to say, Kerala has solved one-third of the equation that drives environmental destruction the world over. And, defying conventional wisdom, it has done so without rapid economic growth--has done so without becoming a huge consumer of resources and thus destroying the environment in other ways.

The two-child family is the social norm here now, said M.N. Sivaram, the Trivandrum--capital of Kerala--representative of the International Family Planning Association, as we sat in his office, surrounded by family-planning posters. 'Even among illiterate women we find it's true. When we send our surveyors out, people are embarrassed to say if they have more than two kids. Seven or eight years ago, the norm was three children and we thought we were doing pretty good. Now it's two, and among the most educated people, it's one.' Many factors contribute to the new notion of what's proper. The pressure on land is intense, of course, and most people can't support huge families on their small parcels. But that hasn't stopped others around the world. More powerful, perhaps, has been the spread of education across Kerala. Literate women are better able to take charge of their lives; the typical woman marries at 22 in Kerala, compared to 18 in the rest of India. On average around the world, women with at least an elementary education bear two children fewer than uneducated women. What's more, they also want a good education for their children. In many cases that means private schools to supplement public education, and people can't afford several tuitions.

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