All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen supremo and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi on Friday rejected Assam Chief Minister and BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma’s reported comments urging Muslims to adopt population control measures.
“Assam CM has again started talk of “population control”. This is Hindutva-speak for blaming poor and marginalised,” Owaisi takes to Twitter to reject Sarma’s contention on population explosion.
Owaisi’s strong criticisms come at a time Sarma stirred a controversy when the saffron leader linked rising cases of land encroachment with population explosion, especially among the Muslim population.
“If the population explosion continues, one day even the Kamakhya temple land will be encroached upon,” Sarma said.
Owaisi argued that the Centre had taken a stand against coercive family planning and said that total fertility rate replacement levels have been achieved.
“Assam has already achieved replacement levels of TFR 2.1. National TFR is 2.2. In simple words, there’s no population explosion. Central govt has itself opposed coercive family planning and called it unnecessary in the Supreme Court,” he said in a series of tweets.
He further said: “Your government should worry about skewed sex ratio due to barbaric practice of sex-selective abortions. It’s projected that even in 2036 Assam’s sex ratio will still be seriously skewed in favour of men. There’s a clear need to fight against underlying sexist cultural ideas”.
According to Owaisi, the discourse on population control was premised on the notion that there are fewer resources compared to the number of people in the country.
“This population-talk is based on the lie that there are too many people and limited resources. Truth is that our resources are hoarded by a small part of population. 22% of UCs own 41% of wealth. Problem is not limited resources but unequal distribution,” he adds.
