In the second half of the 1960s, and in the 1970s, there was global intellectual concern about overpopulation, whereby it was widely seen as the biggest environmental issue. Schindlmayer (2001) notes that concern about overpopulation has gone through ‘issue-attention cycles’, as do most environmental topics (Downs, quoted by Schindlmayer), and that there was a long focus on overpopulation from the mid 1960s to 1974. It was not only about the Third World, as it was then called: environmentalists made US overpopulation a central theme of the first Earth Day in 1970 (Graham, 2000). An indicator of the extent of public conversation about overpopulation at the time, which I always find interesting, is that the subject even appears in a song from David Bowie’s 1967 first album (We Are Hungry Men ). (It was in the mid to late 1980s when ‘the greenhouse effect’ and global warming, as climate change was then usually called, became prominent, after some years of relative political and media quietude on environmental problems.)

INDIA

The subject of overpopulation stretched back further as a concern of prominent educated Indians. Some early anti-colonial intellectuals considered, in opposition to the British Imperial stance, that India had a problem of underproduction, rather than overpopulation. By the 1920s, there were a number of ‘Neo-Malthusian leagues’, with members including maharajahs and judges (Srinivasan, 2017). Mohandas Gandhi separately stated in 1928, "God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the West. If an entire nation of 300 millions took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts" (quoted by Ghosh, 2016). Many British-educated Indians, including those in the leagues, supported the promotion of contraception, although Gandhi did not, advocating abstinence-only approaches. As the independence movement grew, Gandhi, due to his advocacy of traditional ways of life, would be accused of trying to hold back India from economic growth and thereby from gaining greater power and trying to catch up with the West (Ghosh, 2016). Sreenivas (2009) summarises Nehru’s (contrasting, economic development focused) view of 1948 as "No country can be overpopulated, if there is work for everyone." She notes that through the Nehru premiership (1947-64), “India attempted to balance "underproduction" and "overpopulation"”, as grain production increased 1.7 times between 1951-1966, while population increased by 1.5 times 1950-1969.

Not every year in that period was marked by high crop yield, and famines sometimes occurred. Due to Indian leaders’ interest in economic development, and the country’s agricultural suitability, in 1961 India became the first country to benefit from the programme of modified crops, irrigation improvements and industrially-produced fertilisers which comprised the Green Revolution. Hopefully most school geography lessons still cover the Green Revolution, so a long explanation isn’t necessary here.

In 1965, the monsoon rains failed, and famine loomed again. The new PM, Indira Gandhi (Mohandas’ daughter-in-law*) requested international food aid. US President Lyndon Johnson was willing to provide aid contingent on plans for population control policies, sending a memo to Congress stating "The Indian government believes there can be no effective solution of the Indian food problem that does not include population control. The choice is now between a comprehensive and humane program for limiting births and the brutal curb that is imposed by famine" (Sreenivas, 2009).

However, in the second half of the 60s, the weather became more favourable in subsequent years, and the growing yields from the Green Revolution continued, and so the Indian government did not feel such pressure to implement population policies (Sreenivas, 2009).

At the time, India was a major focus of concern about overpopulation. (As, in later decades, demographic transition kicked in in India, other regions of the world would take on that role instead.) Sreenivas quotes from the beginning of Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich’s then highly-influential 1968 book The Population Bomb, in which he describes a crowded night in Delhi: "The streets," he wrote, "seemed alive with people. People eating, people washing, people sleeping. People visiting, arguing, and screaming. People thrusting their hands through the taxi window, begging… People, people, people, people. As we moved slowly through the mob… the dust, noise, heat, and cooking fires gave the scene a hellish aspect." He projected that, in the late 1970s, there could be a huge global famine that would kill hundreds of millions of people, including many in India.

In the early seventies, as the continued yield increases from the Green Revolution were not as great as had been hoped, the government became more concerned about population outstripping food supply.

India’s first four Five Year Plans, from 1951-1974 had included contraception and family planning policies, intended for social welfare, health and status improvement for women, giving couples control of family size, but also with demographic goals in mind. “Choice of methods was left to the acceptor, but there was an official emphasis on sterilisation” (Srinivasan, 2017).

There will be good and detailed posts about the Emergency and its abuses, I’m sure, but in summary, Indira Gandhi’s control of the government had grown during the late 60s and early 70s, and she was able to implement increasingly radical policies. By 1973-4 there were widespread public protests and strikes. These, along with the global oil crisis and the recent war with Pakistan led her to declare the state of emergency and a period of authoritarian central rule.

The 21 months’ Emergency from 1975-1977 “left a lasting impact on the history, psyche and polity of India”, states Srinivasan; he considers that never in the country history had authority been exercised so ruthlessly on a national scale. Anyone who has read Midnight’s Children, perhaps the most famous Indian novel in the English-speaking West, is likely to have noticed its sudden, brutal and disorientating appearance into the narrative there. The Prime Minister’s son Sanjay Gandhi was in charge of many policies, including the sterilisation – although the exact extent of his personal responsibility is disputed. Sanjay Gandhi died in 1980, so has obviously not been around to give retrospective interviews on the subject. Srinivasan explains that the hypothesis was that rapid reduction in fertility, to an average family size of two, and thereby population curtailment, would accelerate economic development. He considers that India’s recent democratic history (and, I would suggest, living memory of overthrowing colonial rule) meant that its aggressive policies could not last, while China – of whose plans Srinivasan considers that Indira and Sanjay Gandhi were aware - was able to continue its one-child policy due to the authoritarian nature of its regime.

Ehrlich had not considered that the Green Revolution would pay continued dividends to the extent it did, and famines on the scale that he expected did not come to pass in the late 1970s and early 80s.

*amended after correction from u/panic_monster in comment below