Throughout 20th century the widespread acceptance of Malthusian theory of generated an awesome fear of runaway increase in the world population, especially in the third world countries. Soon it became the bugbear of western economists and political analysts who started shouting from housetops that the rapidly increasing human numbers will outpace limited natural resources thereby pushing the humankind to the brink of disaster. For a while it appeared that the fear was genuine because within less than one hundred years the global population multiplied more than three times, rising from 1.7 billion at the end of nineteenth century to 5.75 billion in 1995.

1. Clearly twentieth century was probably a period of far higher population growth than ever witnessed in human history.

2. But in recent years the population story worldwide has undergone a radical change. Almost everywhere in the west and in most Asian countries people are now having fewer children. The fertility rates have come down drastically from a high average of 6 children per woman in 1972 to a mere 2.9 in 1990s. And the fertility is falling rapidly, much faster than ever before. The world population will grow from the present headcount of 6.4 billion to around 9 billion in 2050. After that in most countries the population will sharply go into the decline mode. The new threat to the world is not too many people, but too few new arrivals.

3. Across Europe, the fertility rates are now well below the replacement level of 2.1
and many countries like Russia, Germany, Italy and Spain are heading for a serious depopulation crisis. It is a serious challenge to the identity of European civilization whose economic power and political clout has already gone down because of acute shortage of working age population, or E.A.P. (Economically Active Population). The rapidly depopulating nations are invariably hard pressed to find enough youthful manpower to run their farms, factories and transport systems. Ultimately a stage could come when the adversely affected countries may not have enough bright youthful recruits to man the nation's defence forces for guarding its borders and sovereignty.

4. Demography is much more than mere head count. It has some very important functions. First and foremost, no country or civilization can move ahead, or progress without adequate human resource which is yet another name for population. Manpower, or human resource, is the most critical component of every process of economic development, especially research and scientific progress. Robust manpower in abundant quantity is a sine qua non for running a country's farms, factories and transport systems. Throughout the history of mankind knowledgeable, trained and technology oriented human resource has been the fountainhead of all scientific research and source of economic development through Innovations and inventions. The second aspect of demographics is equally crucial. In this brutal world no civilization or nation state can defend itself from predators and hostile groups without an adequate reservoir of youthful manpower required for manning its defence forces.That is both an elementary and eternal truth. It applies more rigorously to nations like India, the United States of 2 America, Russia and Australia which have extensive borders and large coastlines. During the last eight decades a great deal of disinformation, call it half-truth, was spread across the world, especially in developing countries, that increase in population per se is an impediment to economic development. And reverbrations of that half-truth continue to float over most third world countries. The reality, however, is somewhat different from what has been propagated by the votaries of Malthusian theory. The real roadblocks to progress are illiteracy and lack of skill. Youthful population, if it is educated and skilled, is the harbinger of enhanced productivity and higher Gross Domestic Product (i.e., G.D.P.). Every economist knows this. But there is an important caveat: the economically active population must be educated and sufficiently skilled. An illiterate and unskilled population is certainly a liability. That is the crux of the matter. It has been estimated that every human being is capable of producing or earning at least 4 to 5 times more than what he or she consumes during entire life span. But so overpowering is the impact of knowledge and skill on a man's productivity that those human beings who possess superior scientific knowledge or technical skill are capable of producing more than one hundred times of the wealth consumed by them in their lifetime. No one is better equipped to appreciate this fact than us, the Indian middle class elite who are now in the vanguard of Information Technology and biotechnology revolution. It is time we
shed our decades old obsession with population and concentrate on promotion of quality education and technical skills among our youth.

5. It will surprise most Indians, Indian middle class, that the new threat to the humankind does not come from too many babies, but from too few new arrivals. That is the latest news on the population front. Fertility levels have declined by half since 1972 from 6 child births per woman to a mere 2.9 worldwide in late 1990s and are still falling rapidly, almost globally. By 2050 the world population will be around 9 billion, up by a mere 2.6 billion, and after that it is likely to go into a steep downswing. (2). The threat now facing the mankind is depopulation, or too few babies. The continent of Europe, and countries like Russia and Japan are badly trapped in a serious depopulation crisis. According to the United Nations population report 2002, Europe's fertility rates are now far short of the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. France and Ireland with fertility rate of 1.8 top the child-birth chart, while Italy and Spain are at bottom with 1.2. Similarly Germany has a low fertility rate of 1.34. The population of Germany could go down by one-fifth of its 82.5 million people over the next 40 years while Bulgaria will shrink by 38 percent, Romania by 27 percent and Estonia by 25 percent.

6. On the face of it France, along with Ireland, appears to have a better fertility ratio than other European countries. But that is an illusion; truth is altogether different. France has a better fertility rate because it has a sizeable population of Muslims who have much higher fertility than the Christians. Way back in 1900 the Christians constituted 99.34 percent of the population of France, while the Muslim percentage was a paltry 0.21. By 1970 the Christians went down to 83.82 and Muslims rose to 2.66. Thereafter the Muslims started growing faster with the result that in 1990 the percentage of Christians declined to 71.63, while the Muslim percentage rose to 6.79. Presently the population of Muslims in France is believed to be around 10 percent in a total headcount of 59 million plus - some guessestimates place it around 11 percent or more. In terms of absolute numbers there has been a quantum jump in Muslim growth 3 between 1970 and 1990 when they rose from approximately 1.35 million in 1970 to 3.85 million in 1990. In the short span of 2 decades the Christian numbers declined by 0.2 million, going down from 4.26 million in 1970 to 4.06 million in 1990. (3). The demographic scenario in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Italy is equally grim. The Christian percentage is plummeting fast, declining from 98.56 to 77.06 between 1970 and 1990 from in Germany, from 96.51 to 81.12 in the Netherlands and from 98.95 to 88.82 in Belgium.(4).

7. Faultline France could prove to be the first Achille's heel of Europe. An article captioned 'The War of Scarves' published in the first week of February 2004 in The Economist, London, gave a glimpse of the Christians in Evry, a predominently Christian
town south of Paris, located on the banks of river Seine, where 15,000 Muslims now form nearly one-third of the twon's population. The changing demographic pattern of Evry is reflected in the notices published in the local newspaper. The announcements of deaths are mostly of "Pierre" and "Charles", while those of births are often of 'Moussa' and Fateh'. The Christian community is admirably adjusting to the changing demographics. For example, in Evry the slaughter of sheep on Eid is not allowed in houses. But the town hall now organises the ritual sheep slaughter on Eid in a hygienic manner by making every Muslim householder place a tag on his sheep and then the Muslim sacrificateur makes the ritual slaughter after which every family takes home its sheep. Evry reflects the growing changes in the demographic profile and social ethos of France which has now more than 1600 mosques with numbers growing exponentially. Just now there is some kind of truce. But the battle lines already seem to have been drawn. No wonder, the French government is now opposing the entry of Turkey, having a huge population of 70 million, into European Union.

8. The acrimonous ruckus in France over the ban on wearing of head scarves and displaying prominent religious symbols in schools is just tip of the iceberg. Several other demands are being voiced by Muslim students in schools - some quite weird and never
heard in the past. One demand is for making a provision for separate hours for Muslim girls to use swimming pools and school gymnasia. Other demands are for sexually segragated teaching of human reproductive system for girls, then a ban on serving pork in school cafeteria and also abolition of classes on holocaust. Some of these demands are supported by Islamic scholars and clergy, apart from parents of Muslim students. And now the Union of French Islamic Organisations, France's largest Muslim body has urged the government to do a rethink its ban on headscarves in schools. It has additionally called for official recognition of main Islamic festivals so that the Muslims did not feel that "their religion does not have the same status as the majority Catholics".(5). Casual opinions have been voiced by Islamic scholars that French Muslims should set up their own community schools.

9. Communal peace is being increasingly shattered in many parts of Europe. On November 2004 The Hague, capital of the Netherlands, was shocked by the gory killing of the famous documentary-maker, Theo van Gogh, whose film "Submission" bemoaned the maltreatment of Muslim women. His alleged killer, a Dutch-Moroccan, Mohammed Bouyeri and another Muslim pumped half a dozen bullets into Theo's body, slit his throat 4 with a knife and pinned to the victim's chest a note proclaiming jihad against Holland, Europe and the United States. The two suspects were arrested. Soon the country was plunged into a spiral of violence. A Morroccan immigrant was killed in Breda town and there were attacks on mosques and Muslim schools and retaliatory attacks on some churches. (6). It is well known that the U.K. is facing a growing threat of terror attacks by Islamists. Meanwhile, advertisements featuring partial nudity are beng defaced by Muslim activists across the United Kingdom because they are offended by display of flesh by semi-nude women. (7).The hostility and fear of Islamists have spread as far away as Norway where the population of Muslims has grown 75 times in 23 years, rising from 1006 in 1980 to 75,761 in 2003. (8). Even in the far away Norway, tucked in the northern-most corner of Europe fears have been expressed that by 2046 Norway might become a Muslim majority country because the birth rate of ethnic Norwegians is too low even to sustain the current non-Muslim population. A large number of Muslims are concentrated in the capital Oslo and the county of Akershus which surrounds Oslo which political analysts feel will be the first to become Muslim majority areas. Attention has been drawn to the growing impact of "ousting effect" - a colourful term coined by some Norwegian intellectuals to describe the process of non-Muslims migrating out of the areas virtually overrun by the incoming hordes of Muslims. (9). The ousting effect now manifesting in Norway is similar to the ongoing process of many Hindu families relocating away from the border areas of Assam and West Bengal overrun by Bangladeshi immigrants - as pointed out by Bibhuti Bhusan Nandy, a retired officer of Cabinet Secretariat, in his two articles, one published in February 2003 and another one published in January 2005.

10. Because of steep decline in the fertility of Christian Europe, the well known German demographer, Reiner Klingholz, Director of Berlin Institute for Population and Development, fears that parts of Eastern Europe already sparsely populated "will just empty out." (10). The fate of Russia is worse. With an annual decrease of 750,000 people Russia has already landed in a serious phase of depopulation, with President Valdimir Putin calling it a "national crisis". According to Lev Gudkov, a demographer with the Russian Center for Public Opinion, Russians will not be able to maintain their industry, agriculture or the size of armed forces with that kind of demographic decline. The state-owned statistical data agency, Goskomstat, anticipates that Russia's population will plummet from the present 145 millions to 102 millions by 2050. Niall Ferguson, a strategic analyst who teaches contemporary international history at Harvard University wrote in The Sunday Times, London, in April 2004, that within next fifty years
Europe will become a Muslim majority continent. Some enterprising futurologists have renamed it as "Eurabia".

11. In Asia the situation is equally dismal. For instance, Japan with a new low fertility of 1.3 children per woman could lose 25 percent of its 127 million numbers over the next four decades. And the latest Chinese census data, too, puts the fertility at 1.3. The population of China will peak out at 1.5 billion around 2019. By mid-century it could start losing 20 to 30 percent of its population in every generation. Ben Watenberg, a well known Sociologist, has pointed out that since the Black Plague, never during the
last 650 years the fertility rates have fallen so fast, so low and in so many places.(11). The global scenario is so grim that recently there were strikes and demonstrations in 5 Germany, Italy, France and Austria by elderly groups due to threatened cuts in social security and pensionary benefits, spilling over into confronationist postures between the older and younger generations. But the worst fate awaits China where the operation of one-child policy has created a 1:2:4 problem in which each child will be potentially responsible for caring for 2 parents and 4 grandparents in the decades ahead because of increased longevity. (12). The Chinese have already abandoned the one-child norm, after realising the damaging long term consequences of their foolish quick-fix solution for poverty alleviation.

12. But there are exceptions. In Europe Albania and Kosovo are reproducing energetically, and so are Mongolia, Pakistan and the Philippines in Asia. Many Islamic countries continue to grow fast in numbers, with Saudi Arabia at a high fertility rate of 5.7, Palestinian territories at 5.6 and Yemen at 7.2 per woman. According to the
projections made by the United Nations the population of Middle East will nearly double from 326 million to 649 million by 2050. (13).

13. Going back to history we find that the Europeans were able to dominate the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries largely due to their fast growing share in the world population which rapidly increased from about 14 percent in 1500 A.D. to about 40 percent in 1920. To a large extent that facilitated subjugation of numerous regions by the growing armed forces of European countries, albeit aided by the use of new technologies and advanced armaments and weapons of war. Since 1970s there has been a steady decline in the fertility rates of all industrial and modern societies. After the invention and propagation of contraceptives the process of fertility reduction has gathered pace and between 1970 and 2000 the world experienced an unprecedented reduction of fertility levels, driven mostly by a declining trend in developing countries due to increased used of contraceptives and emancipation of women.

14. According to the United Nations Population Division's World Fertility Report, between 1970 and 2000 the world experienced an unprecedented reduction of fertility levels, driven mostly by a declining trend in developing countries.The average number of births fell from 5.9 children in the 1970s to 2.9 in 1990s.(14). The use of contraceptives has substantially slowed down population growth almost all over the globe, except in Islamic societies where its impact has been minimal. During the last three decades throughout Europe, North America, Russia, Japan and China birth rates have fallen so low that many countries have now become acutely apprehensive about the grave consequences of their shrinking population on their economic development and defence preparedness.

15. It is sunset time for a civilization, or a country, when its fertility level starts falling below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. Such a scenario entails that the future generations of the affected country's children will be numerically smaller in numbers than the generations to which their parents and grand parents belonged.
Furthermore, it will ipso facto mean that the proportion of young people in future years will continue to decline in every successive generation, while that of old people, who are economically inactive, will continue to grow. Consequently the GDP (gross domestic product) will shrink because national wealth will be produced by a smaller workforce 6 which will be less than the economically active component in the past. But it will be shared by a disproportionately large number of pensioners and economically inactive population. At the same time, the state and the society will have to make bigger
allocations of funds for providing medical and social services to a relatively much larger proportion of retired and elderly people. That critical scenario is already threatening many European nations, Russia and Japan today. This simple but vitally important reason along with the threat of inadequate youthful manpower in the coming decades has forced China to abandon the one-child norm. A declining population further means that over the years the concerned country will have a higher proportion of old people and therefore find it difficult to meet its requirements of young men and women for its defence forces - a crisis already worrying Russia and Germany. The Christian nations of Europe are ageing so rapidly that by 2025, the proportion of the core youthful group will be less than 10 percent as compared to about 16 percent in 1980. America is somewhat better placed. On the other hand, the youthful component in Muslim societies will remain high; it will decrease very gradually. The percentage of youth in Muslim societies is likely to remain around 18 percent in 2025 in a vastly increased Muslim population which is likely to touch 30 percent or more, nearabout that year. (15). As of now the Indian position appears to be less bothersome. It is, however, almost certain that after 2021, or perhaps earlier in India, too, the proportion of youthful Muslims in the age group 15-24 will be far higher than among the Hindus and allied faiths.

16. As analysed by Huntington, the implications of this steep decline in youthful component between the Islamic societies and other civilizations could have serious consequences because the substantially higher proportion of youths amongst Muslims could lead to greater resurgence of global terrorism. He fears that the western countries will not have enough youngmen to counter the threat of radical Islam. We must remember that youthful population is invariably more energetic, more productive, aggressive and violence prone, while an ageing population is slack, sedate, unproductive, and inclined towards introspection. But maintaining a high component of youthful population is not easy. It will require considerable planning and effort because of serious obstacles, especially in the ageing countries. First, a secular trend of declining fertility rate once established, tends to become irreversible. That is the experience worldwide. Once the proportion of old men and women increases above a certain threshhold with a proportionate decline in the number and percentage of young people, there is no easy possibility of any rapid growth in population. Old men and women cannot procreate, while the ratio of young men and women gets shrunk too much rendering it ineffective for bringing about any surge in the number of births. Initially population growth compounds at a slow pace till it gathers momentum through a surge in youthful component which takes two generations of baby boomers (i.e. anything between 25 to 50 years) to correct the imbalance. No wonder, Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, has been advising his countrymen to opt for a 5 children per couple norm.

17. In the light of global experience it is time to have a second look at the family planning programme. The population growth has slowed down worldwide, as reported by the United States Census Bureau recently. There was an addition of only 74 million 7
people in the year 2002 - a figure well below the 87 million added in 1989. (16).The rate of population growth had peaked out 40 years ago, when it stood at 2.2 percent per annum. (17). Since then it has been declining quite sharply. The inadequately informed middle class activists of India therefore need not cry themselves hoarse about the need for family planning.

18. By 2050 the population of 27 countries (members of the European Union) is likely to fall by 6 percent, from 486 million to 454 million. In a thought provoking article published in the New York Times in the first week of April 2004, Niall Ferguson, who teaches at Harvard University, pointed out that a hundred years ago, when Europe's surplus population was crossing the oceans to populate America and Australasia, the countries that form today's European Union accounted for 14 percent of the world population. But today that figure is down to a meagre 6 percent .(18). And according to a United Nations forecast, by 2050 the Europeans will be reduced to just over 4 percent. (19). The sharp decline of European numbers is both absolute and relative. Even after taking into account the likely immigration, the United Nations estimates that the population of the current European Union members will fall by around 7.5 million over the next 45 years. Never before there was such a huge reduction in the European population since the Black Death epidemic of the fourteenth century. (20). No wonder, the political dominance and economic clout of the European nations has substantially gone down in recent decades, largely due to their declining numbers and reduced work force.

19. The only discordant note, however, comes from the Middle East. The 22 Arab countries of the region have a population of about 300 million. The region's annual population growth rate is 2.7 percent, which is substantially higher compared to 1.5 percent growth rate for the less developed world as a whole. (21). The average economic growth rate in the Arab region is the second lowest in the world. Additionally, bulk of the population of the Arab world is relatively young, with almost 39 percent below the age of 15 and a median age of 20. At the same time, in recent years there has been a sizeable increase in the number of females entering the reproductive age group. (22].

20. While Christians might still be the largest religious group worldwide in the year 2025, Muslims are sure to be the second largest religious community, if not the first one. In 2025 Muslims will form 30 percent or more of the world population. Some demographers believe that by 2025 Muslims could be the largest religious group across the globe. Whichever religious group may be the most numerous in 2025, the projections made in the United States National Intelligence Council Report on Global Trends 2020 about growth rates of various religious groups show that even in the year 2025 A. D. the percentage growth rate of Muslims will be way ahead of all other religious communities. It estimates the growth rate of Muslims at more than 2 percent in 2025 A.D., while the Hindus will be growing at 1.5 percent and Christian growth will be still at a lower rate, anywhere between 1 and 1.5 percent. (23). The approximate growth rates of adherents of different religions between 1900 and 2025 A.D. have been depicted in the graph below: 8

Projected Religionwise Growth (%) - 2002 - 2025
(Source: U.S. National Intelligence Council Report on Global Trends 2020)

Among all the nations across the globe, perhaps America alone has been fully aware of the strategic dynamics of demography and its huge impact on the future of the world community. For more than a decade Pentagon has been quite concerned about the acute depopulation crisis facing the western civilization, especially the European 9 countries, in sharp contrast to the sharply rising population of developing nations, especially in West Asia and other Islamic societies. The United States Defence department had commissioned two studies in 1988 and 1991 respectively to monitor the impact of global demographic changes for assessing America's ability to influence the geopolitical events abroad. Of the two reports on world demography the first one was compiled in 1988 for the CSIS (Centre for Strategic and International Studies) by Gregory D. Forester, an instructor of the National Defence University, Washington, while the second report was authored by Nicholas Eberstadt of Harvard University Center for Population Studies in 1991. (24). Briefly the two reports highlighted the following facts :

(i) The changing trends in world population constitute nothing less than "a mortal threat to the western domination".

(ii) During the next two decades "demographic developments promise to have a material effect on the general complexion of the world". In the twenty-first century the growth and decline in the respective populations of various countries will substantially impact the geopolitical balance of power and thereby affect the destinies of many nations across the globe.

(iii) An important issue in the coming decades will be the extent to which the demographic developments will affect the size and composition of the military establishments of various countries. By and large, the population
changes will lead to completely different concerns in developed countries when compared to developing countries. The declining fertility in western countries will make it difficult for the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (N.A.T.O.) allies and Russia and her associate nations alike to maintain the current levels of their armed forces. In sharp contrast, the exceptionally high fertiity of many developing countries could lead to expanded military establishments as a "productive alternative" to absorb growing unemployment among their youth.

(iv) While the changing demography of various parts of the world may or may not alter the international balance of power over the next two decades, the types of conflicts likely to dominate the world in the years ahead will be manpower intensive. This assessment has already come true and the general trend of manpower-intensive conflicts is already visible in many parts of the world, especially in a number of Islamic countries mostly in West Asia.

(v) The population growth in the Middle East is likely to pose increased risks to the interests of America in that region. This 15 years old assessment, too, has come true. It explains the U.S. resolve to stay put in Middle East.

(vi) Between 1988 and 2010 Africa's population will more than double to 1.3 billion. For instance, Nigeria which had a population of 103 million in the year 1988 is expected to double its population by 2009, triple by 2024 and quadruple by 2035, thus surpassing both the United States and 10 Russia. It might become the third or second largest country in terms of population. Similarly Kenya's population of a little over 20 million in 1990s could double within the next 17 years.

(vii) Sound and futuristic population management is an important aspect of effective defence strategy. The 1988 CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies) report emphasised the need for intelligent population planning by according it the level of importance "equal to the development and procurement of advanced weapons".

24. In the coming decades large scale demographic changes will have a profound and far reaching geopolitical influence in shaping the destinies of many countries worldwide, India included. The implications of the likely demographic changes are summarised below.

• First, all those countries which are in a declining population mode will encounter serious economic difficulties after 10 or 20 years, unless they import migrant manpower, an option difficult to exercise in the present scenario of fear and suspicion about the intentions of Islamists.

• Second , any substantial fall in the youthful component will create large gaps in the ratio of working-age population and old-age population and thereby undermine the resolve and vigour of the affected countries and civilizations to fight back.

• Third, over a period of time, the population changes will lead to increased faultline conflicts due to competitive hostility for grabbing more land and other livelihood resources between the numerically growing and the numerically losing civilizational groups. These conflicts might ultimately degenerate into civil wars for protecting, or annihilating, the cultural and civilizational values of the warring communities causing blood bath on the pattern of the events witnessed in Lebanon and the Balkans during 20th century.

• Lastly, due to their shrinking size the demographically losing countries will have lesser say in the affairs of the world community, both politically and economically.

Most people regard population count as a routine census operation undertaken once in ten years. There is much more to it. Demography is a deceptive science. It works slowly, almost stealthily, and then suddenly the population change gathers momentum and bursts upon the sky of the victim country or civilisation, almost like a stealth bomber!

25. Before closing this macro-analysis, it may be pointed out that due to the ongoing demographic changes at least 4 strategic regions are likely to face multiple faultline conflicts. These are West Asia where Israel is already trapped in a life-and-death battle with the Palestinian terrorists, duly supported by the neighbouring Arab countries. 11 Recently as a result of 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' America too has joined the battle in West Asia and no one knows how long this violent engagement will last. The second important area of civilizational conflict will be the continent of Europe already reeling under the threat of Islamic take over through numbers game, because of fast declining Christian population. We know that the Balkans has been the scene of renewed bloody civil wars and mayhem now for more than 15 years. More European countries will be sucked into the vortex of religion-based faultline conflicts. The third area of civilizational conflict will be India where the silent invasion from Bangladesh and the rising crescendo of jihadi fervour in Kashmir valley and many other areas has already queered the pitch for civilizational conflicts between the two major communities. The fourth and the last area of major faultline conflicts is the soft underbelly of Russia where apart from Chechenya, the Muslim majority Dagestan, Ingushtia and Uzbekistan are badly affected by jihadi terrorism. In due course of time the African continent, especially Nigeria and Sudan, could also be the new turf of faultline conflicts.

26. Here attention must be drawn to the forecast made by the National Intelligence Council (a non-government strategic think tank of America) in their report, Mapping the Global Future - 2020, about the increased religious activism and growth of radical Islam in the coming decades. (25). While painting a rosy picture about India's accelerated economic progress, the report warns about a global impediment arising from the risk of a caliphate emerging to unite radical Muslims across ethnic and national boundaries - a threat which is much more relevant to the Indian sub-continent and Europe than to any other region.

The views and facts stated above are entirely the responsibility of the author and do not reflect the views of this Association in any manner.