India’s surprise baby bust is a warning to the world

Jun 4th 2026|5 min readYOU ARE having too many babies. For decades that crude message was drilled into the minds of Indians by their rulers, abetted by inept foreign donors. In the 1960s slogans on school buildings chided parents, telling them: “Two or three children, enough”. By the 1970s officials had taken a crueller turn, overseeing the sterilisation of millions of young adults, usually the poor, many forcibly. But when Indian school textbooks are reprinted this summer, they will carry a very different message. They will warn not of the dangers of having too many babies, but of the risks of having too few.This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “India’s baby bust”From the June 6th 2026 editionDiscover stories from this section and more in the list of contents⇒Explore the edition