Problems posed by rapid demographic change

Movements of people have mattered in Pakistan from the time of its birth almost eight decades ago as a predominantly Muslim state. As I estimated in my earlier writings, the partition of the large British Indian colony in 1947 into two states – a predominantly Hindu India and a predominantly Muslim Pakistan – caused some 14 million people to leave their homes and move across the newly defined international border. Eight million Muslims left their homes and jobs in India and moved into Pakistan, seeking security of life. For the same reason, six millions Hindus and Sikhs moved in the opposite direction, from Pakistan to India. This was the largest movement of people in human history and its effects are being felt in Pakistan to this day.

This transfer of population left Pakistan with two million more people than would have been the case at the time of its birth. Working back from the first population census taken in 1951, Pakistan at the time of its founding had 34 million people. Its current population of 225 million is almost seven times as large compared to when it was born.

However, large movements of people continued after the founding of Pakistan. What the scholar Steve Inskeep calls Karachi an "instant city" in a book that carries that title brought millions of workers from the more populated parts of the country to Karachi and turned a small coastal city into a large capital. A large number of the new arrivals were from the Pathan areas of Pakistan which became an important source of accommodation for the millions of Pathans who were displaced by the three decades' long war in their native Afghanistan. The war began when what was then the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The Soviet intrusion began in 1979 and lasted for a decade. It was followed by two decades of war conducted by the United States from 2001 to 2021.

Large movements of people in and out of Pakistan remained an important feature of economic, social and political life in the country. Millions of Pakistanis have gone to the Middle East, Britain, North America and Australia. The number of people who took up residence in foreign lands is estimated at 10 million. There they have become the members of Pakistani diasporas which remain involved in the developments in the country of their origin. Their most important contribution is the money they send back to their families who have remained behind. It is estimated that the amount of remittances arriving from the members of the diasporas is in the neighborhood of $35 billion, or 8 per cent of the country's gross national product. Migrants from Pakistan and from other countries with large restive populations are changing the colour and religion of the countries to which they are moving. People of colour and Muslim faith are also affecting the political systems of the receiving countries. In a couple of articles, I will begin this discussion with the systems of beliefs that originated with the economist Thomas Malthus from Britain who made a name for himself in his thinking about demographic trends.

Malthus falsely predicted that rapid advances in medical sciences and ability of governments to provide health care would have, over the long run, drastic consequences. This would be the case in particular in the poor parts of the world – the parts that are now collectively called the Global South. There the increase in the size of the population would outstrip the growth in food output. Science and new technologies would come much more slowly to the sector of agriculture than to the sector of health. That would result in widespread hunger – even famines. We are witnessing that situation in parts of Africa where tens of thousands of people are perishing because of hunger and famines.

The Malthusian predicament did not arrive. What came to be called the 'green revolutions' resulted in the rate of increase in food output to significantly outstrip increases in populations. Famines occurred but were relatively rare and were caused mostly by the breakdown in political and social order than by the factors identified by Malthus. This is happening in the Gaza Strip and in Sudan. Famine-like conditions have been caused by the bloody conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and in Sudan where groups from different ethnic backgrounds have not found ways to coexist.

However, while Malthusian concerns are no longer cause for worry by policymakers around the globe, there is a different phenomenon in play in the world's well-to-do areas. This is related to sharp declines in birth rates in the world's relatively rich countries. That is the case not only in the West generally understood as North America, Western Europe and Australasia. It is also happening in Russia and China which follow systems of governance very different from those in the West. The rate of population increases in these parts of the globe has fallen well below the rate of human fertility demographers call the 'replacement rate' and see it as 2.1 children per woman. Rates below this level would cause population declines. This is occurring in all those countries that have seen relatively high rates of economic growth.

Population declines will undoubtedly result in economic stagnation which would, in turn, produce social and political tensions. Large-scale migrations from the people-abundant Global South to the demographically challenged Global North would solve the problem by bringing people who can fill the gap between population growth and economic advance. However, large infusion of people from the Global South while taking care of economic and social needs of the countries in the Global North create another set of problems. These would be caused by the entry of people of colour and often following different faiths to bring in social and cultural change that would not sit well with the majority of citizens in the developed world. While in today's article I have focused on the demographic change that is occurring in the more developed countries, in the article next week I will use the recent developments in Britain and the focus on cross-border movements in the United States by Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for the presidential election of November 5, 2024, as two examples – but not the only ones – of the serious tensions being caused by the mixing of colour and religion.