India and Brazil - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 174

Program to be “implemented on a war footing.” The government budgeted
$200 million a year. The same officials who had proclaimed 4 years earlier
at the World Population Conference in Bucharest that “development is
the best contraceptive” now ordered “disincentives” for those who did not
cooperate. Family planning was now obligatory and New Delhi ordered
“harsh measures.” 5 Finally, the outcry at Mrs. Gandhi's dictatorship drove
her from office. Yet 3 years later, she surprised her enemies by winning
reelection and returning as prime minister. This time she was more cau-
tious about vasectomies and claimed they would be entirely voluntary.
By now laparoscopy was available and became more popular.
Acting on the preference of sons to daughters became easier for parents
with improved medical technology. With the introduction of sonogram
machines that can determine the sex of the fetus in the womb, many
families opt to abort girls. Some without modern medicine resort to
female infanticide. The sex ratio has fallen to only 89 girls to 100 boys at
birth. The typical woman willing to undergo sterilization already has four
living children, of whom at least two are boys.
The Indian government issued a comprehensive plan in 2000 to “promote
the small family norm” in order to bring fertility down to the replacement
rate. Unlike China, this advocates a two-child family. Incentives include
payments of 500 rupees to poor mothers who wait until age 19 to have
their first child, who limit their children to two, and who are sterilized
after only two children. Communities will be rewarded for achieving
the small family norm. Contraceptives and abortions will be made more
available. The plan recognizes the problem of abortion and infanticide of
girls by paying a bonus for girls first or second in birth order. 6
With its swelling population, growing economy, and environmental
problems, India has some common features with Brazil. Both are democ-
racies with vigorous market economies. By many measures, the South
American country has the advantage. It has only a fifth the number of
people and a per capita income twice as high. In the Amazon region
(the size of Western Europe), large tracts of land are undeveloped.
Brazil was discovered by the Portuguese in 1500 as they raced the
Spanish for colonies and for trade routes to India. The vast territory lacked
the advanced Indian civilizations and material riches the Spaniards found
in Mexico and Peru. Only a few native people lived there, scattered about