Demographic resilience in Northeast

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)’s claim that further actions by governments to reduce fertility will not slow down the pace of population growth before 2050 is a bitter pill to swallow. The UNFPA report, ‘State of World Population 2023’ has sounded the alarm bell that over the next few decades, migration is predicted to become the sole driver of population growth in high-income countries. With India aiming to achieve five trillion dollar economy by 2025, and ten trillion dollar economy by 2033-34, more migration of population from some neighbouring countries is looming large. For indigenous population in the northeast region, more particularly in states like Assam, who are facing existential threat to their identities and culture due to alarming demographic change caused by illegal migration and population explosion of immigrant settlers; it is a cause for grave concern. Climate experts have predicted submergence of 17% of Bangladesh area due to sea level rise on account of global warming and leading to potential displacement of around 20 million people from the country by 2050. Such projections call for looking at measures to control population growth in the northeast region beyond fertility control measures and focus simultaneously on securing the India-Bangladesh border and putting in place a stronger mechanism to curb illegal migration of people. Some other key highlights of the UNFPA report includes the finding that worldwide, fertility has fallen from an average of 5 births per woman in 1950 to 2.3 births per woman in 2021, and overall fertility is projected to fall to 2.1 births per woman by 2050; global average of lifespan has increased by 28 years from 45.51 in 1950 to 73.16, except Europe, where population growth is expected to decline by 7% between 2022 and 2050, population in the rest of the region is projected to continue growing before reaching the peak by 2100. The report underlines the importance of looking at world population surpassing the 8 billion mark, from the perspective of “historic advances for humanity in medicine, science, health, agriculture and education,” beyond “alarmism” and “towards empowerment” and achieving “demographic resilience.” “From a global perspective, the current combination of countries with ageing populations on the one hand, and countries with youthful populations on the other, would in theory offer an opportunity for partnering, exchange and shared resilience. If ageing countries partner with young and high-fertility countries to support economic migration, such migration flows could boost the working-age population, stabilize pension systems and even possibly also contribute to a short-term increase in fertility,” insists the UNPFA in its report. Ramification of similar population migration to a growing economy like India with wide regional disparity in growth and development could be disastrous. Assam and other states in the Northeast, for instance, have been lagging behind other states in rest of India after partition left the region landlocked and snapped its access to sea routes while unabated migration of population from erstwhile East Bengal, erstwhile East Pakistan and Bangladesh as well as rest of India triggered population explosion reducing Assamese and other indigenous population into minorities. If illegal migration is not stopped, and constitutional safeguards are not provided, then Assamese and other indigenous people facing the same fate of indigenous Tripuri people in Tripura of being reduced to minority in their own land is only a matter of time. Such anxiety over demographic change is genuine and consequences of overlooking and ignoring it will be catastrophic for indigenous people. Ironically, measures to indentify and expel illegal migrants in Assam have been put into the backburner while India-Bangladesh border remained porous even after nearly 38 years of signing of the Assam Accord. Education, economic empowerment and access to sexual and reproductive healthcare empowers women to take crucial role in population control by refusing to get married before eligible marriage age and without completing at least school education. Social gains of such approaches fertility measures for population control is negated by swarm of illegal migrants entering resource-starved states like Assam aggravating the demographic crisis. The UNFPA report which seeks to dispel the myth of world population being “too few” or “too many”, has not addressed such population anxiety of smaller ethnic communities like Assamese and other indigenous population communities in geo-strategic location like India’s northeast. The global population body underscores the need for changing the narrative of “national identity under threat by influx of migrants” to “inclusive societies are key to developing demographic resilience”. This, however, is problematic for the northeast region where demographic threat due to influx of migrants is real and is advancing towards overwhelming the indigenous population. A combination of fertility measures and strong legal and structural measures to curb influx of migrant population, apart from improving access to education and health, therefore, remains the pragmatic approach to address the population explosion in Assam and other north-eastern states.