Revisiting the Khanna study : population and development in India, 1953-1960
In the post-war, post-independence period, India became a key site of intervention and experimentation for international population control advocates. During the 1950s, the Government of India became the first government to announce an official policy of population limitation as part of its first Five Year Plan in 1952, constituting its own national population as an object of study and intervention. The Khanna Studyâa well-known population control experiment conducted in the Ludhiana District of Punjabâis emblematic of these processes. Between 1953 and 1960, Khanna was the site of population control experimentation for the Indian State and international organisations alike. Through a case study of the Khanna Study, this dissertation asks why India was so important to strategies of international population control and, conversely, why population control was so important to the newly-independent Government of India. I argue that international population control advocates focused on India because of the scale, poverty andâcruciallyâaccessibility of its population. International organisations were able to experiment upon the Indian population primarily because of the collaboration of the Government of
Williams, Rebecca
DS Asia ; HB Economic Theory
Revisiting the Khanna study : population and development in India, 1953-1960. In the post-war, post-independence period, India became a key site of intervention and experimentation for international population control advocates. During the 1950s, the Government of India became the first government to announce an official policy of population limitation as part of its first Five Year Plan in 1952, constituting its own national population as an object of study and intervention. The Khanna Studyâa well-known population control experiment conducted in the Ludhiana District of Punjabâis emblematic of these processes. Between 1953 and 1960, Khanna was the site of population control experimentation for the Indian State and international organisations alike. Through a case study of the Khanna Study, this dissertation asks why India was so important to strategies of international population control and, conversely, why population control was so important to the newly-independent Government of India. I argue that international population control advocates focused on India because of the scale, poverty andâcruciallyâaccessibility of its population. International organisations were able to experiment upon the Indian population primarily because of the collaboration of the Government of
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