A PARISH in India’s southern Kerala state is offering cash incentives to couples who produce more children following worries that the Catholic population in the region was declining.
“Every fifth child born in the family in our parish stands to get richer by 10,000 rupees [nearly €150],” said Salu Mecheril, regional co-ordinator of the scheme launched by the St Vincent De Paul Forane Church in Waynad district in northeast Kerala.
“We are working to spread this campaign in all the diocese’s parishes,” he added, voicing concerns aired by other church groups over the province’s dwindling Christian population.
Fr Jose Kocharackal said that by the end of August the St Vincent church had issued Rs10,000 deposits to two families, adding that part of the weekly Sunday collection was set aside to fund these pledges. Some Catholic churches are even offering free treatment to large Christian families at their hospitals.
Fr Paul Thelakkat, a spokesman for the Catholic Syro-Malabar Church which is advocating the policy of rewarding procreation said: “Our campaign is for responsible parenthood but the decision on how many children a couple should have is personal. We are not against family planning.”
The church’s cash-for-babies scheme, however, was announced shortly after the provincial government appointed 12-member committee on Rights and Welfare of Women and Children suggested action against parents with more than two children.
Headed by retired Supreme Court judge VR Krishna Iyer, the committee somewhat harshly recommended that couples with more than two children should be fined Rs10,000 or alternately serve a three-month jail term.
Christian and Muslim groups condemned the report, saying it encroached upon their religious freedom.
However the leader of Kerala’s Hindu United Front maintained that the two-child norm advocated by the federal family welfare ministry should be strictly enforced as there were limited resources available to sustain such massive and growing numbers.
Statistics indicate that between 1991 and 2001, Kerala’s Hindus and Christians had declined by 1.48 and 0.32 per cent respectively of the state’s population of 31.8 million, while Muslim numbers had increased by 1.7 per cent.
India’s ever-growing population jumped to 1.21 billion in the latest census and, according to UN estimates, could overtake China’s 1.34 billion people by 2030. This poses a crucial demographic challenge to the country’s economic, environmental and social planners.