Population bomb
By Dr Mehtab S Karim

Most educated people in Pakistan agree with the fact that the country’s population has been growing at an alarming rate during the past few decades. Pakistan was only the second country after India that started an official family planning programme about 50 years ago, while many other Asian and Arab countries did so later. Even though in Islam there is no bar in using birth control methods, our religious leadership has vehemently opposed family planning, due to the belief that family planning is against Islamic teachings.

Since the 1990s the UN has organised a few conferences where Muslim clerics from various countries have given their views on this subject. There have also been publications on this issue, which clearly indicate that there has been consensus among early scholars of Islam that Quranic verses or the Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) don’t forbid or say anything against family planning. But apparently, religious leaders associated with the two major Islamic parties in Pakistan, think otherwise – perhaps due to lack of knowledge.

In the March 31 Geo TV programme, The Great Debate – anchored by Hamid Mir and Iftekhar Ahmed – efforts were made to get the views of eight major political parties about this important subject. First of all, the initiative taken – pointing out the repercussions of excessive population growth in Pakistan and openly discussing family planning in the presence of a young mixed audience – by both the journalists and particularly Geo TV should be commended.

While representatives of the PPP, PML-N, PML-Q, MQM, PTI and ANP were very encouraging about providing access to family planning services to women, one fails to understand why representatives of JUI-F and the Jamaat-e-Islami (supposed to hold the most knowledge about Islamic teachings) continue to oppose family planning, which they have been doing since the 1930s. It’s unfortunate that not only their representatives but also most ulema and pesh imams are of the same view – that family planning is contrary to Islamic teachings.

The role of clerics at the village level is indeed very crucial, since tose who are less educated, and have very little knowledge about Islamic teachings, seek guidance from these so-called clerics on matters such as whether they should use family planning methods or if it is appropriate to marry their daughters off at puberty (which is also not encouraged in Islam according to Imam Abu Hanifa). Indeed three countries that have had successful family planning programmes are all Muslim majority states – Iran, Indonesia and Bangladesh. These countries have managed to use their clerics to promote family planning services.

On the other hand, over the past decade, while top Pakistan officials from Population Welfare Ministry have visited these countries several times and have even had clerics accompany them, they have been largely unsuccessful in reaching out to men in the rural areas. Thus, those in our rural areas end up with an average of five children per woman as opposed to two to three children in families living in the rural areas of Iran, Bangladesh and Indonesia. During the Geo TV programme, the representative of the Jamaat-e-Islami had no answer when asked about the Bangladeshi Jamaat not opposing family planning activities in Pakistan, he had no answer.

It was interesting to listen to representatives of the PPP and the PML-Q, two women members of the outgoing parliament who are well known for their support to family planning initiatives over the past three to four decades. They blamed lack of political will for the poor performance of the family planning programme in Pakistan. One wonders what stopped these two – having been in the corridors of power, each for over a decade, and also having served as ministers – from convincing their respective leaders to making population planning a top priority.

Since 1999 neither the sole military ruler nor the elected government paid any heed to this crucial issue. During the last 15 years, use of family planning methods among women of reproductive age in Pakistan remained at about 30 percent. Most of these women are educated, living in urban areas and are doing so either through the efforts of NGOs or on their own. On the other hand, since 1980 use of contraception among married women has doubled in Iran to 73 percent, in Bangladesh to 60 percent and in Indonesia to 58 percent.

Consequently, whereas in 1980 there were 10 million more people in Pakistan than in Bangladesh, now there are 30 million more people in Pakistan. Similarly, Indonesia had 50 million more people than Pakistan in the year 2000. With a much higher growth rate, Pakistan’s population will exceed that of Indonesia by 2030. Thus, Pakistan will have the distinction of being the largest Muslim country in the world – with a substantial proportion of the population illiterate and poor.

Unfortunately, there is little possibility that Pakistan’s population growth rate will decline in the near future, since the Ministry of Population Welfare has ceased to exist at the federal level after the 18th amendment and at the provincial level there is hardly any activity. In a seminar held in Bhurban recently, attended by the representatives of the four provincial governments (from the departments of health and population welfare), it was pointed out that there is no integration in the activities of the two departments as both have independent ministers and secretaries. Each has its own domain and is not willing to accept the other as an important actor in the delivery of contraceptives.

This not only wastes limited resources, but delivery of contraceptives also gets affected due to departmental conflict and lack of monitoring. It was also pointed out by the experts present at the Bhurban meeting that in countries where family planning has been a success story, there is only one minister and a secretary in charge of both population and health while there are two directorates each responsible for its own activities.

Ideally, the same model should be adopted in Pakistan. The function of the family planning directorate should be limited to publicity and motivation and that of the health directorate in the provision of services. Of course NGOs should also play an important role in reaching out to women living in rural areas. Hopefully, the representatives of the major political parties will take this into consideration.

If they fail to do so, then five years later we will be discussing how to handle 220 million people instead of the approximately 190 million we have today. Perhaps some political parties will be happy that the vote bank will be over 105 million then (instead of about 85 million now). However, most will be much more demanding than they are now.

The writer is a senior fellow and professor of Public Policy at George Mason University and has co-authored Islam, the State and Population and Future of the Global Muslim Population.