Need govt policies for "religious-based imbalance": Mohan Bhagawat

Nagpur: India needs a government policy for population control, RSS head Mohan Bhagwat said on Wednesday. According to him, there is a religion-based imbalance in the country as well as forced conversions going on. The two might break the country, and therefore the government must take necessary steps, NDTV reported.

Speaking at the annual Dussehra rally of the RSS, Bhagawat cited East Timor, Kosovo and South Sudan as examples to establish that new countries emerged due to religion-based imbalance within a population.

NDTV quoted him, "Along with population control, population balance on religious basis is also a matter of importance which cannot be ignored."

Bhagawat said that the population requires resources, and if it grows without resources, it becomes a burden. A population policy must be formed, keeping the above in mind, and thus population can be made an asset.

Repeating the right-wing Hindutva discourse, he said, birth rate as well as conversion by force, lure or greed, along with infiltration, were caused by the said imbalance.

However, the BJP-led Union government has not adopted the idea of a population control law so far, although it was raised multiple times by BJP members and RSS.

Rajya Sabha member Rakesh Sinha raised a Bill for such a law in April, and Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said that family planning awareness and accessible healthcare had ensured the stabilisation of the population. He added that the total fertility rate has come down to 2%, suggesting the success of the family plan mission.