For decades, India’s population story was summed up in a slogan: "Hum Do, Hamare Do", a family planning mantra that defined generations. But the conversation has now shifted. India’s recent dip below replacement-level fertility of 2.1 (State of World Population Report 2025 by the UN Population Fund) has sparked concern, not over overpopulation, but population decline. From ageing populations in East Asia to falling birth rates in Latin America, countries across the world are confronting similar anxieties.
Amid these shifts, one truth remains: the real challenge is not the numbers, but how we respond to them. We must build systems that uphold the rights and aspirations of those historically excluded. This is especially true for women and adolescents, whose health and autonomy have long been overlooked, and whose access to opportunity remains unequal.
Demographic transitions cannot be addressed by numbers alone; they require decisions grounded in rights, dignity, and institutional clarity. The path forward lies not in population control but in rights-based systems, ones that centre around reproductive autonomy and ensure equitable services. These systems treat health and care as entitlements, not privileges. This includes reducing maternal deaths, improving care quality, expanding access to contraception and infertility services, and linking reproductive rights with education and economic opportunity.
Achieving this shift means moving from managing fertility to enabling freedom, from control to co-creation, and from fear to long-term investments in autonomy, health, and equity. India’s own experience, particularly in Haryana, offers valuable lessons.
Building with trust and delivering with care
India’s move toward a rights-based population approach is gaining ground. Haryana offers one example of how this shift can begin from the ground up. It started not with laws, but with community conversations in panchayats, classrooms, and temple courtyards that directly challenged son preference. The Beti Bachao Beti Padhao ("Save the Daughter, Educate the Daughter") initiative became the backbone of this movement, translating community resolve into government action. Faith leaders, adolescent girls, and frontline workers were mobilised early, creating social consensus long before formal policy reforms. Legal enforcement followed. More than 1,000 cases under laws prohibiting sex selection and unsafe abortions helped reinforce these emerging norms.
This civic momentum laid the groundwork for a coordinated set of actions that advanced both care and autonomy. Maternity entitlements under Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana supported over 50 lakh women. Haryana’s Creche Policy enabled more than 10,000 women to enter or remain in the workforce. Project Jagriti expanded women’s mobility through safe transport, while the Salamati Project improved access to contraceptives and reproductive health services. These efforts positioned care work as a shared public responsibility.
Success depended not only on policy but on strong public systems. Haryana invested in the foundations that make rights real. Referral networks were expanded, wheat flour was fortified to improve nutrition, and immunisation supply chains reached over 45 million people during the COVID-19 pandemic. These efforts ensured services reached people and built lasting trust in the state’s ability to care.
From adolescent-led awareness networks to ASHA-led mobilisation, Haryana’s experience affirms a powerful principle. Population policy must begin by listening and conclude with systems that deliver. This local journey, grounded in care and women’s leadership, offers lessons for diverse settings around the world. That is what it means to build with trust and deliver with care.
What the future demands of population policy
Too often, population policy has been shaped by fear: of scarcity, ageing, or decline. Attempts to manage populations through numerical targets, financial incentives, or legal restrictions have not delivered lasting results. Worse, they have eroded trust and violated rights.
Today, leadership must meet demographic change with empathy, evidence, and equity. This is especially urgent in countries like India, where fertility has declined across most states, and annual births peaked more than a decade ago. Now, like many nations, India faces the steady challenge of ageing.
This moment calls for more than incremental adjustments. It requires a fundamental transformation in how we view population and policy. Future efforts must centre three imperatives: reproductive autonomy, public investment, and equity. Reproductive autonomy means the freedom to make informed choices about one’s body and life. Public investment is needed to build systems that support health, education, care, and voice. This includes digital tools that protect rights and expand access. As technologies reshape how people receive care and information, they must be governed not by efficiency alone, but by inclusion, dignity, and trust. Equity means ensuring that no one is left behind, whether by gender, geography, age, or income.
India’s experience, from challenging son preference to expanding adolescent health services and from community-led dialogues to system reform, shows what rights-based policy looks like in action. It is ethical, effective and scalable.
But there is no universal formula. Population strategies must be locally led, informed by women’s voices, and rooted in context, whether addressing ageing in East Asia or areas with limited access to essential health and care services in rural Africa. This is the call before us. We must reimagine population policy as a tool for dignity, equity and care. It must be guided by those it serves and supported by strong systems that can sustain them.
The author is Additional Secretary to the President of India, and Former Secretary, Health, Haryana
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of www.economictimes.com)
Amid these shifts, one truth remains: the real challenge is not the numbers, but how we respond to them. We must build systems that uphold the rights and aspirations of those historically excluded. This is especially true for women and adolescents, whose health and autonomy have long been overlooked, and whose access to opportunity remains unequal.
Demographic transitions cannot be addressed by numbers alone; they require decisions grounded in rights, dignity, and institutional clarity. The path forward lies not in population control but in rights-based systems, ones that centre around reproductive autonomy and ensure equitable services. These systems treat health and care as entitlements, not privileges. This includes reducing maternal deaths, improving care quality, expanding access to contraception and infertility services, and linking reproductive rights with education and economic opportunity.
Achieving this shift means moving from managing fertility to enabling freedom, from control to co-creation, and from fear to long-term investments in autonomy, health, and equity. India’s own experience, particularly in Haryana, offers valuable lessons.
Building with trust and delivering with care
India’s move toward a rights-based population approach is gaining ground. Haryana offers one example of how this shift can begin from the ground up. It started not with laws, but with community conversations in panchayats, classrooms, and temple courtyards that directly challenged son preference. The Beti Bachao Beti Padhao ("Save the Daughter, Educate the Daughter") initiative became the backbone of this movement, translating community resolve into government action. Faith leaders, adolescent girls, and frontline workers were mobilised early, creating social consensus long before formal policy reforms. Legal enforcement followed. More than 1,000 cases under laws prohibiting sex selection and unsafe abortions helped reinforce these emerging norms.
This civic momentum laid the groundwork for a coordinated set of actions that advanced both care and autonomy. Maternity entitlements under Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana supported over 50 lakh women. Haryana’s Creche Policy enabled more than 10,000 women to enter or remain in the workforce. Project Jagriti expanded women’s mobility through safe transport, while the Salamati Project improved access to contraceptives and reproductive health services. These efforts positioned care work as a shared public responsibility.
Success depended not only on policy but on strong public systems. Haryana invested in the foundations that make rights real. Referral networks were expanded, wheat flour was fortified to improve nutrition, and immunisation supply chains reached over 45 million people during the COVID-19 pandemic. These efforts ensured services reached people and built lasting trust in the state’s ability to care.
From adolescent-led awareness networks to ASHA-led mobilisation, Haryana’s experience affirms a powerful principle. Population policy must begin by listening and conclude with systems that deliver. This local journey, grounded in care and women’s leadership, offers lessons for diverse settings around the world. That is what it means to build with trust and deliver with care.
What the future demands of population policy
Too often, population policy has been shaped by fear: of scarcity, ageing, or decline. Attempts to manage populations through numerical targets, financial incentives, or legal restrictions have not delivered lasting results. Worse, they have eroded trust and violated rights.
Today, leadership must meet demographic change with empathy, evidence, and equity. This is especially urgent in countries like India, where fertility has declined across most states, and annual births peaked more than a decade ago. Now, like many nations, India faces the steady challenge of ageing.
This moment calls for more than incremental adjustments. It requires a fundamental transformation in how we view population and policy. Future efforts must centre three imperatives: reproductive autonomy, public investment, and equity. Reproductive autonomy means the freedom to make informed choices about one’s body and life. Public investment is needed to build systems that support health, education, care, and voice. This includes digital tools that protect rights and expand access. As technologies reshape how people receive care and information, they must be governed not by efficiency alone, but by inclusion, dignity, and trust. Equity means ensuring that no one is left behind, whether by gender, geography, age, or income.
India’s experience, from challenging son preference to expanding adolescent health services and from community-led dialogues to system reform, shows what rights-based policy looks like in action. It is ethical, effective and scalable.
But there is no universal formula. Population strategies must be locally led, informed by women’s voices, and rooted in context, whether addressing ageing in East Asia or areas with limited access to essential health and care services in rural Africa. This is the call before us. We must reimagine population policy as a tool for dignity, equity and care. It must be guided by those it serves and supported by strong systems that can sustain them.
The author is Additional Secretary to the President of India, and Former Secretary, Health, Haryana
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of www.economictimes.com)
You may also like
Madhya Pradesh Inks MoU With Arunachal Pradesh To Get 252 Mw Electricity
Home Loan Tips: If you are thinking of buying a home, then know these important things before that
Special court grants NIA 10-day remand of two Pahalgam terror accused
Russia issues WW3 threat as Estonia makes promise over UK's nuke-capable jets
From Wembley ballgirl to Lionesses' youngest cub, meet England's one to watch at Euro 2025
