Population & associated issues
India's population dynamics—demographic transition, dividend, ageing, sex ratio and migration—mapped to UPSC GS-1 Indian Society demands.
India as the World's Most Populous Nation
As of April 2023, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) State of World Population report confirmed India had overtaken China to become the world's most populous country, crossing 1.428 billion. The last completed Census was 2011 (1.21 billion); the decadal Census due in 2021 was deferred and remains pending, making the 2011 figures, the Sample Registration System (SRS), and the National Family Health Surveys (NFHS) the operative data sources for the exam.
The Demographic Transition Model
India is traversing the classic four-stage demographic transition. Stage 1 (high birth, high death) characterised the colonial era up to 1921—called the 'great divide' year, after which mortality began falling. Stage 2 (high birth, falling death) drove the population explosion of 1951–1981 as famine control, vaccination and the eradication of smallpox (1977) and plague slashed death rates. India is now firmly in Stage 3: declining fertility with low mortality.
The decisive metric is the Total Fertility Rate (TFR). NFHS-5 (2019–21) recorded a national TFR of 2.0, below the replacement level of 2.1 for the first time. This is the single highest-yield fact for this lesson. States diverge sharply: Bihar (2.98) and Uttar Pradesh remain above replacement, while Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh fell below 2.1 years ago. This north–south divergence underpins debates on delimitation and federal resource-sharing.
Policy Architecture
India launched the world's first national family planning programme in 1952. The compulsory-sterilisation excesses during the Emergency (1975–77) discredited coercion and shaped a rights-based approach thereafter. The National Population Policy (NPP) 2000, framed under the M.S. Swaminathan committee recommendations, set the goal of population stabilisation by 2045 and made replacement-level fertility its immediate objective. Article 47 of the Constitution (Directive Principles) charges the State with raising the standard of living and improving public health. Population and family planning sit on the Concurrent List (Entry 20-A, inserted by the 42nd Amendment, 1976).
Sex Ratio and the Missing Girls
The Census 2011 sex ratio was 943 females per 1,000 males; the child sex ratio (0–6 years) was a more alarming 919, the lowest since independence, exposing prenatal sex selection in prosperous, low-fertility states such as Haryana and Punjab. The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act, 1994 criminalises sex determination. Encouragingly, NFHS-5 reported 1,020 women per 1,000 men in the survey population—a sampling-based reading, not a census count, but a notable signal. Candidates must distinguish the sex ratio (all ages), the child sex ratio (0–6), and the sex ratio at birth.