india struggles to survive in the modern era and in the process her human population becomes unstable

R. Ashok Kumar,B.E(Electrical),M.E(Electrical),Negentropist,Member Bombay Natural History Society,Member Asiatic Society of Bombay.
e-mail: ashokuku@rediffmail.com
Postal Address Flat No.1/13, Telec Officers' CHS Ltd., Plot 30, Sector 17, Vashi, Navi Mumbai-400705. Telephone: 022-27896209

Copyright © 2011 Ramaswami Ashok Kumar

Commentary

Modern ways of life include the process of globalisation which in India began in the 1600s and which has always been disrupting ecological processes of nature.Globalisation has stopped natural evolution in its tracks. On account of this the human population of INDIA WHICH HAD BEEN CONSTANT at 100-120 million for ten thousand years , started rising in 1850 and has reached a billion in 1999 and is still rising. This unstable situation has been brought about by the following series of events: The people who were living in harmony with the forests and the village commons were robbed of their inalienable rights to the forest produce and the village commons by imperialism and were left to fend for themselves. The landlord system was created and people servile to the British were made landlords. The biological security-the insurance for survival- provided by the community was lost . The individual family unit saw that the only way to survive was to reproduce.This was complicated by the heavily polluting industries and the destruction of the forests and the agrochemical based farming in British India and intensified after Independence.Indiscriminate mining leases were given and industrialisation caused deadly chemicals and radiochemicals to enter the food chain. The 35+ age group male to female mortality rate ratio reached 1.55 in 1997 compared to 0.66 for the same for the 0-34 age group. This was more than 2.3 times the ratio for the 0-34 age group.To compensate for this the 0-34 age group male population became 2.6 times that for the 35+ age group. And natural laws ensured that the female population closely followed this and the corresponding ratio for females was 2.48. The ratio of these ratios namely the male to female ratio was 1.0454. The male to female ratio for the 0-4 age group was in concordance with this 1.0469! This was further complicated by the infant mortality rate which has a male to female ratio of much much higher than 1 for the peninsular states of Kerala ,Karnataka and Maharashtra in the West and Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal in the East.These are extremely significant statistically compared to India as a whole. For Kerala this sex ratio was 1.75 in 1992, for Karnataka it was 1.3 in 1982,1.24 for Maharashtra in 1987, 1.3 for Andhra Pradesh in 1994, 1.2 in 1996 for both Orissa and West Bengal. The overall birth rate(crude) for 1981-1991 was 2.85 times the crude death rate for the same period for India. The infant mortality rate as well as the under five mortality rate is double that for China and the birth rate is 1.5 times that for China. Imposition of the 2 children norm for the Indian family unit and stringent economic penalties without a study of the constraints that these mortality rates and their sex ratios impose has led to disregard of this norm. This is because survival dictates that the male children be 2.5 times the female children to overcome the male excess mortality compared to the female as seen from the sex ratio for the mortality in the two dichotomous age groups referred to above.But natural laws show that the male female sex ratio be nearer 1.08 as revealed by the 1991 census. Thus this is an unstable population and is primarily brought about by globalisation which destroys the ecological base on which life depends.Globalisation has disregarded environmental effects of the ensuing transfer of resources because they disrupt the ecological properties of nature both at the micro and macro levels. Thus exports of everything everywhere is impoverishing the earth.And rampant unemployment is chronic as well as the enormous excess of hoarded foodgrains(30 millions unemployed and 30 million tonnes hoarded). The sex ratio for the mortality rate for India between 1971 and 1997 correlates statistically extremely significantly (r=0.83 at p<<0.001 for 20 year lag for the dose and r=0.856,p<<0.001, for no lag in dose,no of degrees of freedom=25)with the strontium 90 bone marrow dose for a child born in 1950 as it progresses through to 1997. This dose is due to atmospheric tests of atomic and hydrogen bombs between 1943 and 1980 by the Western Nuclear Powers and China. Strontium 90 like Plutonium damages the DNA twice in a repair cycle of a cell and thus there is a high risk of the mutation being passed on to the daughter cells. See Chris Busby.1995.The Second Event. In the Wings of Death. Green Audit Books. Wales. pp 188-235. The large male infant mortality rate(IMR) compared to the female IMR for the peninsular states of India referred to above could be caused in large measure by the chemical and radiochemical pollution on the subcontinent : In winter the tropical Northern Indian Ocean atmosphere and earth's surface are covered by anthropogenic aerosoles of sulphate,nitrate, organics,soot,flyash and radiochemicals from the subcontinent and other areas.During the Southwest monsoon these are washed down into the peninsular coastal states mentioned above. These together with agrochemicals pollute the drinking water and enter the food chain. When the total rainfall over these states is on the lower side, the concentration of the deadly pollutants in water is high and the sex ratio for the IMR is high and vice versa(r= -0.573,p=0.0259,degrees of freedom=15). This is as measured by the SRS(Ref 1)for the years 1982 to 1996. For the sceptic it may be noted that the mean clear sky solar radiative heating at the ocean surface is threefold lower than at the top of the atmosphere due to solar absorption by soot created by modern civilization. As a specific confirmation of the globalised adverse effects we have the conclusions of a classic study by Mocarelli et al (Ref.8) that high concentration in serum(blood derived) samples of parents are linked to lower sex ratio of their offspring. Of interest to India , largely an agricultural nation, is that dioxin was released into the atmosphere in draconian amounts (32 kg) in an accident in a herbicide manufacturing factory in Seveso, Italy in 1976. The effect on the sex ratio of dioxin begins at a concentration of as low or lower than 20 nanograms per kg of body weight! And as usual it is serendipity and the physiological mechanism of the role of dioxin in lowering the sex ratio as in several other life threatening mechanisms is unknown!We must bring back biological security at the community level by recognising the reasons of high mortality rate sex ratios and thus assuring to the individual family that one or two child norm does not mean the loss of insurance for life and that the community by law will take care of the needs of safety and well being of the individual members of society. We must simultaneously and within a time frame of five years, tackle the chronic problems like blind globalisation instead providing safe drinking water and providing basic needs apart from this, to individuals through the community as in the days of old when people lived on the subcontinent in harmony with the forests. We must recognise that when we regenerate forests upto a level which assures survival the bottom line of a healthy,wholesome and happy existence for all in ecological harmony can be hoped for.In the meanwhile ignorant globalisation must be eschewed. There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action. The Western Powers and China knew that they can conduct atmospheric nuclear tests with impunity because the random premeditated mass murders that are caused by these tests worldwide are perfect murders. No one can connect the effect(the murder) with the cause(the Strontium 90 dose due to these tests) in any individual case. Only bitter persuations with Nikita Krushchev by Andrei Sakharov, the father of the USSR hydrogen bomb and Nobellaureate for Peace in 1974 and who knew about the 'NON-THRESHOLD(that is no safe low limit for the dose) biological effects' of ionising radiation , did succeed in bringing a halt to the nuclear tests in the atmosphere by the atmospheric nuclear test ban treaty initiated in August 1963 and brought into effect in October 1963. In spite of this and similar efforts in the West by Pauling and Bertrand Russel one could not however stop the deaths due to nuclear activities totalling 65 million for nuclear activities to 1989 as estimated by the European Committee on Radiation Risk(see www.llrc.org for details). And Putin has learnt precious little from this. Even though the 6000 MW of Kudankulam nuclear reactors he proposes to sell to India , even during normal operations will cause the random premeditated perfect murders of 12000 every year precisely because of the 'NON-THRESHOLD BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS' of the reactor effluents, and even though there is no net energy available to society from nuclear reactors , even though this will exacerbate the greenhouse effect, he is bent upon closing the deal with our gullible establishment. Good luck for globalisation! There is nothing more frightful than action even though one knows the dangers involved in it.

References:
1. Registrar General,India,New Delhi.1999.Compendium of India's Fertility and Mortality Indicators 1971-1997 based on the sample registration system(SRS).
2. Statistical Outline of India.1998-99.Tata Services Ltd.,Department of Economics and Statistics. Mumbai.p47.
3. Kingsley Davis. 1948. The Population of India and Pakistan. Princeton.4. The Low Level Radiation Campaign:www.llrc.org:ECRR 2003 Recommendations of the European Committee on Radiation Risk The Health Effects of Ionising Radiation Exposure at Low Doses for Radiation Protection Purposes. Regulators' Edition in www.euradcom.org5. Sakharov A. 1992. Memoirs. Vintage.
6. Satheesh SK and Ramanathan V. 2000. Large Differences in Tropical Aerosol Forcing at the top of the Atmosphere and Earth's Surface. Nature. Vol.405. 4th May. p60-63.
7. Clapp R and Ozonoff D. 2000. Nature. 27th May. p1838.
8. P. Mocarelli et al. 2000. Paternal Concentrations of dioxin and sex ratio of offspring. Nature. 27th May. p1858-1863.
9. Neuberger M et al. 2000. Dioxin Contamination of Feed and Food. Research Letters. Nature. 27th May. p1883.