Economics of Mahaveera

Author(s): Mahapragna Acharya
Publisher: Adarsh Sahitya Sangh

Page 79

POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT
63
• Eradicating poverty • Controlling demographic growth • Improving environment • Removing unemployment
The Demographic Issue In between the issues of poverty and environment lies the growth in population. When population increases, poverty also increases and the environment gets polluted. Accordingly, the first question is: how to exercise control over population? To achieve this, a variety of efforts has been made and continues to be made, but the population growth could not be checked. Population is continuously increasing. Only a few years back, the population of India was about 600 million. It then crossed the 700 and 800 million mark and is now more than 900 million. It is being mentioned that India would welcome the 21st century with 1030 million people. When population increases markedly, it impacts the articles of consumption, and the problem of poverty and scarcity gets more involved and that of environment get more complex. :
Why Does Population Increase? A big question remains to be addressed: how could the increase in population be controlled. The variations -- growth and decline - in population have their own causes. Mahavira pointed out four factors behind every loss and gain - money, space, time and value. All these are contributory factors in the growth and dimunition in population. In Jain literature, there is a reference which says that after Bhagwan Rishabh, during the time of Teerthankar Ajit, the population increase was the highest. In population increase, kalkhand or the age (period) is a relevant element.
Apparently, there is some close correlation between poverty and population. That the poor produce more children is an accepted fact which leads to a high rate of population growth. In developing countries, the rate of increase in population is comparatively high. There is a reference in ancient Sanskrit