Daily Times

Nearly bewildered by Pakistan’s ascent up the global population ladder after latest census, I hurriedly looked at my jungle friends — to see if the wild have something to teach on matters related to population.

Loads of wisdom on population control and population welfare, just as I anticipated. How to manage numbers in the wild? How to stay within reasonable limits to best benefit from nature’s bounties? How to conserve the balance and rhythm on the face of earth by honoring the prescribed and proscribed limits? Production patterns in the wild are strictly circumscribed by millennia old codes of conduct.

Mother Nature — through its unwritten codes in population control and population welfare — has successfully ensured survival and procreation of thousands of animal species over millions of years. And that, too, in strict accordance with the carrying capacity of nature’s indigenous resources. These cardinal canons on population control and welfare are religiously adhered to by all children of nature — except of course, Homo sapiens

Procreation is not an automatic right in the jungle. Only the best and ablest have precedence in matters related to raising new generations. Dogged fights, often with bloody outcomes, decide the most suited and fittest amongst the herds or prides to carry the genes from one to the other generation.

And after newborn arrive, the topmost priority has to be the well-being and immaculately planned rearing, against all odds of the young ones. Mothers in the wild will stay away from repeat production unless weaning of the young has been completed and finished to the best satisfaction of Mother Nature. No male can intrude or interrupt the extremely painstaking drill of raising the young by their doting mothers, meant to fully equip the new arrivals to ably fight along the road to survival and successful, meaningful existence.

But this is not the end of story. Young ones in the wild are reared and nurtured till a specific, stipulated time — when they are out of many dangers; when they can fend for themselves, having learnt the millennia old art of survival in the wild. And here the jungle code enforces another graduation.

The moment, young are reasonably grown up, these very doting mothers will next day, near callously, throw them out of the herd or pride. Guarded against all dangers by risking mother’s own life for years and then thrown out suddenly in an extremely rough manner — unaltered law of nature with no exceptions. The banishment of grown up from mothers and sisters in the wild carries great wisdom — minimizing and plugging any possibilities of inbreeding which can typically result in congenital faults in the next generation.

So the wisdom of the wild is plain and impressive in matters of population control. Only the best, ablest and the fittest are allowed to procreate. Production cycles are also meticulously regulated to ensure health and well-being of the females. This is followed by another devoted period of rearing and nurturing of the young by mothers during which time they will strictly stay away from male until such time that the earlier born young one are fully capable of survival in the wild. Every possible precaution is exercised to forestall inbreeding for ensuring healthy mixture of gene pool. On their part, young ones are taught best possible lessons on successful survival and existence, before they are sent away to fend for themselves.

As a result, Mother Nature — through its unwritten codes in population control and population welfare — has successfully ensured survival and procreation of thousands of animal species over millions of years. And that too in strict accordance with the carrying capacity of nature’sindigenous resources. The moment, numbers in any species in the wild cross the prudence limits imposed by nature, dire consequences follow in a mechanical manner to bring back balance in populations of the wild.

These cardinal canons on population control and welfare are religiously adhered to by all children of nature — except of course, Homo sapiens.

And here, I will like to interrupt and take you back to the days of an earlier census in 1998 where I was involved as a sub-divisional officer. It was a distant village on outskirts of beautiful district of Badin. I reached this village by way of snap checking the census and house enumeration work and stumbled upon a small homestead alongwith census field staff.

A typically shabby village house in lower Sindh where we were met with hero of that day: a proud head of the family who also happened to be the proud father of eleven — yes, eleven — kids, ranging in age from six months to seventeen years; and to complete the picture, he was flanked by his bewildered looking, “expecting again” poor wife.

Tilling a land measuring hardly a few acres and sustained by an erratic livelihood, augmented here and there by left-over, small quantities of prawns collected from local mangroves — he was the true face of a typical son of the soil. His malnourished wife and visibly under-fed children told the story of his unabated, prolific spree of productivity in total disregard to the prudent laws of nature on population welfare.

Needless to say, he had his side of the story which he told gleefully to justify his “numbers”. Once grown up, the “boys” will be a great help in the decades’ old, local blood feudinvolving Chandios and Mirbahars — he belonged to one of these tribes;the daughters will share the burden of household and livelihood chores; bonds in the family will be further strengthened by inter-marriages (six teenaged boys and girls out of his eleven kids already stood betrothed): and to cap it all, number of PPP voters will increase – “Jeeay Bhutto”, the good Samaritan proudly thumped his chest as we beat a hasty retreat.

I am not in the least surprised to see the figure touch 20.7 crores in 2017 but tremble in awe as I try to imagine present “numbers” around my old Badin friendfrom 1998.

Writer is a public policy and environmental expert. He can be reached at syedrizwanmehboob@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, August 31^st 2017.