#Society: How Many Children Hindus Should Have?

Every now and then media catches some Hindu leader suggesting Hindus to have more kids so as not to get outnumbered by other religions and then hell breaks loose. (E.g. News1; News2) Getting carried away by the mainstream media (mainly TV news), people like us also criticize such persons on social media expressing disgust and the underlying basic principle is - "it is our personal choice to have as many kids as we want and any other person or organization does not have any right to suggest me or persuade me about it". Isn't it so?

First, if you follow news, such suggestions are made by leaders from all religions. A few days after last time media had made Sakshi Maharaj famous, Pope himself had made a very similar statement. But media does not criticize other religions for the same charge because Indian media's main audience are Hindus and Hindus would naturally find criticism of their own religion more "appealing" than of others - which helps channels's TRP. If I write a facebook post criticizing Hindus, I will get 30 'likes' but if I write one criticizing other religions, I would perhaps get only 3 - because my friends are majorly Hindus. Secondly, data tells that Muslims population is indeed growing faster than Hindus' and hence if some Hindu leaders are educated enough to make sense out of the data and the trend analysis, we should not get angry with them for it.

Lastly, do we really get so upset with anyone suggesting us about how many kids to have? Are not our Govts doing the same for decades - by asking us to breed only "2"? Slogans like "Ham do hamare do" were thrust into our ears for years; and our own (tax-payers') money was spent to teach us the benefits of "small family" - If your father has 100 acres of land and you are 2 kids, you get 50 acres each; but if you are 10 kids, you get only 10 acres each - hence by appealing to our "greed", Govt was able to convince Hindus and other liberal religions to have small families. On the other hand, govt is officially busy increasing the population of minority religions like Parsis by officially using tax payers' money; and inflating the budget of so called "Minority Affair Ministries" while there have been no "Majority Affairs Ministry".

When govt said, "have 2 kids or less", we found it "fine"; but when a Hindu leader says, "have more than 2 kids", why do we find it revolting while logically both are suggesting us to have a "right number of kids" according to their own "perspectives"? If you think rationally and logically, both statements - "have 2 kids or less" and "have 4 kids" are of same "kind" and "characteristic"! But thanks to the media which cares only about TRP and has thrown its brain down the drain; our "perception" is molded so that we find Govt's slogan fine while religious leaders' statement as bad.

- Rahul