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       The final draft of the two-child policy bill was submitted in mid-August to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

       Ritesh Shukla/Getty Images

       India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, has introduced a bill to enforce a two-child policy – a move quickly branded by population and public-health experts as discriminatory and coercive.

       The proposed legislation rides on a wave of disincentives, such as barring people with more than two children from government jobs, subsidies, welfare programs and running in local elections.

       A group of 139 public-health specialists, rights activists, women’s organizations, academics and concerned individuals have written to President Ram Nath Kovind demanding the withdrawal of the bill and calling it “a violation of reproductive health and rights, which are considered basic human rights of women.”

       The final draft of the bill was submitted in mid-August to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu monk who has vociferously backed it. “A population explosion can create obstacles in the development of the state and the country. The countries and states which have made efforts in this direction have seen positive results. However, more efforts are needed in this regard,” he said.

       The bill proposes a “green card” for couples with two children, but it goes a step further by granting a “golden card,” with additional benefits, to couples with just one child. The Hindu nationalist organization Vishva Hindu Parishad quickly criticized that incentive, citing the failure and disastrous consequences of China’s one-child policy.

       Indians are still scarred by memories of the forced sterilization program launched in the 1970s by then-prime minister Indira Gandhi’s son Sanjay, amid a period of martial law known as the Emergency. Sanjay Gandhi had never been elected to office and held no official position within the government, but that didn’t stop him from ordering the sterilization of millions of men from poor communities. Several botched sterilization programs since then have cost lives too.

       Experts say that while population control is welcome – Uttar Pradesh is home to some 240 million people, with a population density that is more than double the national average – the bill targets marginalized communities; is unnecessary, as India’s population is stabilizing; and the country is still struggling with a bigger health crisis.

       “It will disproportionately impact the most deprived and vulnerable, as they are the ones most dependent on government rations, subsidies and schemes. With COVID-19 already exacerbating inequities, actions such as those proposed in the draft bill will only put women and children at further risk,” said Poonam Muttreja, the executive director of the Population Foundation of India.

       The value of such coercive measures is also questionable. There are currently eight Indian states with an active, if less draconian, two-child policy, including Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, noted Ms. Muttreja. “Two-child norm policies or measures have not been independently evaluated in any state, and its efficacy has never been demonstrated. A five-state study by former senior Indian Administrative Service officer Nirmala Buch found that in the states that adopted a two-child policy, there was a rise in sex-selective and unsafe abortions, men divorced their wives to run for local body elections, and families gave up children for adoption to avoid disqualification.”

       The Uttar Pradesh government has argued that the main factor driving the bill is the state’s burgeoning population, whose per-capita income stands at half the national average. According to the National Family Health Survey, the state has a total fertility rate of 2.7 children per woman, compared with a national average that has fallen steadily over a generation to just 2.2.

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       “The fertility rate in India has been declining by 2 per cent per annum for 20 years,” said K.S. James, the director and senior professor at the International Institute for Population Sciences in Mumbai. “In our experience, what works is a three-pronged strategy to control population, seen in states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu: social development, women’s empowerment and an emphasis on delivery of family planning services.”

       To that end, it is vital that governments prioritize incentives over disincentives. “Past experience has shown repeatedly that coercive population policies in patriarchal societies like ours tend to target women … from poorer and more vulnerable, marginalized sections of society. While the pressure to produce a male child by husband and in-laws continues, so does the pressure to limit child birth to two,” said Mira Shiva, a women’s health expert in Delhi and the director of the Initiative for Health & Equity in Society.

       “The question that needs to be asked is whether the state would ensure survival of the two children, given the erosion of determinants of health, food and nutrition security, access to affordable, non-exploitative health care,” Dr. Shiva said.

       Advancing education for girls, access to contraceptives, preventing child marriages and focusing on overall health and development are far more efficient policy measures for fertility decline and achieving population stabilization, said Ms. Muttreja.

       The proposed two-child policy has also stirred suspicions that it is a political ploy ahead of the state election in six months. “This is a totally bogus political move with the intention of creating a rift between Hindus and Muslims, carrying forward the story that Muslims will overtake Hindus and take over political power. This is hardly the time when a population policy is required. It’s come when this state government has already been in power for 4.5 years and is at the end of the term. So the motives are suspect. It is just meant to start the debate that Hindus are in danger,” said S.Y. Quraishi, author of The Population Myth: Islam, Family Planning and Politics in India and a former chief election commissioner.

       India has had a national population policy since 2000, he said. Twenty-four of the country’s 28 states have already achieved the replacement-level fertility rate of 2.1, with the remaining states – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan – expected to reach that target by 2025.

       What would help is meeting the need for family planning in Uttar Pradesh. Ms. Muttreja prescribes more investment in access to such services and expanding the basket of contraceptive choices, especially long-acting reversible contraceptives, which are critical in view of the state’s largely young population.

       “Providing better access and quality of health care for young people will not only lead to improved health, but will also visibly improve educational outcomes, increase productivity and workforce participation, in turn result in increased household incomes and economic growth for the country,” she said.

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