Population, the peril
Psychologically, human beings are often blind to the most obvious. A story goes that once Mullah Nasruddin came to a tavern and exclaimed, “It is the moon which is more important for mankind than the sun”, and sat down to order some food. His followers gathered round him pleading with him to explain his remarks. He shouted at them, “The moon gives us light at night when it is dark, but who needs the sun during the day when it is already bright”! Our political and intellectual leaders similarly cannot see the most obvious, because without the problems created by expanding population, they all would be out of their jobs. With unemployment, poverty, ill health, lack of education, difficulty in enrolment in schools, traffic accidents, pavement hawkers, muggings, murders, corruption, extortion etc, gripping the land, which are really auxiliary problems ensuing from the main problem of over-population, those who are in charge of solving these smaller problems will all be out of their jobs if they don't succeed. So they are all psychologically blind to the obvious main problem and have a vested interest in perpetuating such blindness. The authorities must therefore without any delay officially acknowledge that population increase is the main problem and develop effective accountable mechanisms to deal with it, with similar recognition from all other subsidiary departments and work programmes in the country and gain their full cooperation to achieve a target of fast-declining population.
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