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INDIA CROSSES ONE BILLION POPULATION MARK

On May 11, the telephones all over India had a special announcement instead of the normal dial tone: “Our population is now one billion. Let’s have a small family for a stronger India!” Astha, a newborn girl in Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital was declared the one-billionth Indian citizen. For symbolic reasons, representatives of the Indian government and the UN Population Fund selected a girl child, which had to be healthy and normal weighted and good looking and likely to become a presentable “billionth Indian”. The UN Population Fund committed to support her education with a special grant.

Today, 16 per cent of the world population live in India, inhabiting only 9.4 per cent of the global landmass. Increasing its population by more than 16 million per year (that is the total population of Australia), India is expected to overtake China and become the most populous country in the world within the next 25 years.

The national Indian average regarding the rates of  fertility, literacy, infant and maternal mortality or life expectancy, however, gives too simplified a picture of the actual situation. While parts of the country do show a positive development in their socio-demographic structures and states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu have been exemplarily successful in curbing their population and tackle over population related problems, the four largest Indian states --Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajastan and Uttar Pradesh-- together amounting to 40 per cent of the country’s population, show a shockingly poor record in family planning and alarming infant and maternal mortality rates as well as the lowest literacy and life expectancy rates.

To change the situation, many factors are to be considered. As long as India is not in a position to guarantee proper old age pension for all its inhabitants, it remains a question of personal security for many people to produce more children. There are several other factors that influence. The wish for a male child who would perform the ceremonies after the death of parents (Hindus believe that only a male child could do these ceremonies that guarantee proper rest for souls!) and bring dowry to the family, child mortality rate, requirement of more persons to work in the farm etc. have deep influence.

Another important problem at a different level has been the resistance of some state governments to cooperate with national efforts to reduce the population, because the number of Parliament seats of the states was linked to the number of its inhabitants. In February, the Indian Government released its Population Policy 2000. It included the decision, to freeze the number of Parliament seats for all states for a period of ten years, ensuring that successful family planning in a state would not be “punished” with loss of political influence. This decision may turn out to be a key for unexpected changes.

WAS SOVIET UNION AN ATHEIST STATE?

Before taking the official charge of the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin revealed a secret. He has been wearing a crucifix even when he was serving as a high ranking officer of the KGB, the so-called "instrument to curb religious influence" in the "atheist Soviet Union". Long years of service under Soviet government did obviously not harm his religiosity. Some years back, when he visited the “Holy Land”, he put on his mother's crucifix to get it blessed there, and never removed it since.

Did the former Soviet Union fight religion? Yes, and no. But the 'no' was more important for the opportunist Soviet leaders at least from 1954. Unlike what is generally perceived, in the former Soviet Union, churches were supported by the state, the government paid the priests and even Bible printing was financed by the state. To silence the western critics, for several decades Soviet authorities tried to prove that religious freedom was guaranteed best in the Soviet Union. And education on the foundations of the historical tradition of the freethought movement was absent there. Politicians like Putin are the products of this Soviet Union!

The situation was not much different in some eastern European countries as well. According to an official publication of the Government of Poland, the church has been growing there systematically under the communist regime. The following figures are eye opening.

CHURCH IN POLAND

YEAR   PRIESTS   PARISHES   CHURCHES
1937      13943         7257               2115
1944      7160           N.A.              5000
1965      17333         13263             6327
1972      18237         13518             6497

(Source: The Church in Poland, Inter Press Publishers, Warsaw, p.227)


In 1968, Soviet Information Centres around the world announced: "The churches and religious institutions are supported to publish religious books and pamphlets... Soviet government provides them with paper and printing facilities. Also facilities are provided by the Soviet government to train priests and other celebrants." (Alexei Puzin, Religion in the USSR, USSR Information Service, Madras, 1968, p.14).

Contrary to the demands of the secular civilization, The Council for Religious Affairs under the Soviet cabinet, has been supporting religion using state fund. What were the responsibilities of this Council?

"Arranging places of worship for religious groups, establishing schools for Bible education, supplying candles and other prayer instruments to churches, providing materials for building new churches and to renovate and repair old churches, supporting publication of religious literature, and releasing of sufficient foreign exchange for travelling priests and religious officials..." (Religion in the USSR, USSR Information Service publication, 1968). While it was believed in the west that religion was suppressed in the Soviet Union, in fact the Soviet government supported and sponsored the Russian Orthodox Church and the church has been growing steadily using the state sponsorship.

The absence of active freethought groups in the USSR provided a favorable ground for the church. The focus of criticism in the West against the Soviet Union was on freedom of religion --the Soviet answer was to liberally support the church. On the other side, criticism of religion was officially discouraged. "There is extreme precaution that the religious sentiments of the believers are not hurt. Those who mock the church and priests are condemned and punished (in the USSR). Mocking the church or priests and scientific atheism are different. It is against the policy of the party and the government." (Excerpted from the resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Soviet Union, dated 10 November 1954).

The reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union have to be traced from its inner contradictions and its political and economic programmes. To call the Soviet Union an atheist state and to term the fall of the Soviet regime as the failure of atheism is simply absurd.