BIMARU: Say it Right
In the build-up to the elections in MP and Rajasthan, politicians are mistakenly using a demographic acronym as a pejorative. EPISODE #149
Dear Reader,
A very Happy Monday to you.
A few weeks ago the Election Commission announced the schedule for elections to the state assemblies of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram. It formally set in motion the last election cycle ahead of the next general election in 2024.
It is also the season for rival politicians to indulge in a no holds barred slug fest. One pejorative that has found its way into the electoral lexicon is BIMARU.
It is the acronym coined by one of India’s best demographers, Ashish Bose. It stands for Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh (BIMARU)—also the traditional laggards in economic development.
But that is not the reason why Bose coined the term. He identified them as “demographically sick”. Yet, knowingly or unknowingly, politicians are using it as a pejorative by claiming that states governed badly are economically sick, hence BIMARU. This week I set the record straight.
A big shoutout to Balesh, Surendra, Premasundaran and Vandana for your informed responses, kind appreciation and amplification of last week’s column. Once again, grateful for the conversation initiated by all you readers. Gratitude also to all those who responded on Twitter and Linkedin.
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Demographically Sick
In the run-up to the latest round of elections to five state assemblies including Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, the word ‘Bimaru’ has crept into the electoral lexicon of some politicians. In Hindi the word means sick. Understandable then as to why it is being flung about as a pejorative.
However, as always electoral fact is inevitably way off the mark.
BIMARU is an acronym for Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Including Odisha, the historical economic laggards of India. However, the acronym identifies these four states as demographically sick because of the stickiness of their demographic statistics like birth rate.
The term was coined by Ashish Bose, one of India’s best demographers. Sharing a link to a lovely profile that ran in Mint and written by a brilliant young colleague, Narayana Kumar—who unfortunately passed away a few years ago.
The Idea
The term BIMARU came up in the context of the heated debate in the 1970s on India’s population problem.
In fact, during the Emergency the union government led by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, had in utter disregard of basic human and fundamental rights, forcibly sterilised people to enforce population control—which was being blamed for India’s poor economic record.
Luckily, the Emergency was lifted and the scheme was buried. However, the debate over India’s population problem stayed alive.
A decade later Rajiv Gandhi who succeeded his mother—after her assasination by terrorists—as PM made population control a policy priority.
The programme was subsequently renamed as ‘family welfare’ to bury the ghost of forced ‘family planning’ imposed during the Emergency. Bose, a constant critic of family planning, claimed that this was nothing but old wine in a new bottle and, official statistics notwithstanding, the policy had been a consummate failure—failing to impact birth rates.
A curious PMO under Rajiv Gandhi sought a meeting with Bose. The babus present in the meeting, who were invested in covering up the policy failures, sought to dazzle the PM with a mass of data. Gandhi however saw through their intent and called out the truth: population control measures had failed miserably, even while spending on it was growing.
This entire exchange is recorded in a must read memoir Bose wrote—a lovely and entertaining read. I would highly recommend buying it.
Addressing the PM, Bose said:
“Mr Prime Minister, I am glad you admit that India’s family planning programme has failed. I have been saying this for the last twenty years and have been accused of being anti-government.
India’s family planning programme began at the wrong end—sterilization is the linchpin of the programme, but only for those who already have five or six children!
How can this make any real dent in the birth rate?”
Suitably impressed, Bose was asked by the government to prepare a report on restructuring the family planning programme.
BIMARU
In his research Bose figured that the existing strategy of ‘one size fits all’ was not working, especially for the larger states.
Between them, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh accounted for 40% of the country’s population. These states, Bose argued, were demographically sick and hence needed to be singled out for special treatment so as to impact the national average.
“Indicators covering the average age at marriage, the number of children per woman, the practice of family planning, the maternal and infant mortality rates, life expectancy at birth, etc, were the most dismal in these states.
There were smaller states (with populations below 5 per cent of India’s total population) like Assam and Orissa, where the situation was equally bad, if not worse, as far as some of these demographic indicators were concerned, but I wanted to describe the crux of India’s population problem and therefore left out the smaller, demographically sick states.”
That is how the idea of BIMARU was born.
At its core it singled out these states for special treatment and made a case for reinventing the family planning programme by abandoning the practice of targets and incentives—which were gamed by the system to bleed the exchequer.
It however never got translated into policy as Rajiv Gandhi, first got distracted by corruption scandals that rocked this government and later lost the general election in 1989.
Bose, however never gave up his fight.
“Reproduction exists in the private and not the public sector. Producing children is not like producing cement or steel.
How can secretaries of ministries sitting in Nirman Bhawan set targets, and that too in such elaborate detail specifiying the exact method family planning like sterlisation, condoms, pills etc in a free country?
What control does the state have over the reproductive lives of people in free society.”
With the benefit of hindsight it is obvious that this was a byproduct of the Licence Raj mentality that governed India’s industrial policy. Even a nut or a bolt had to operate within the regimen of licence controls specified by the Industry Ministry. This regime was dismantled in 1991, when India undertook a burst of economic reforms to deal with an unprecedented economic crisis and to fulfil conditions for a bail-out package from the International Monetary Fund.
No surprise then that family planning targets were formally abandoned on 1 April 1996—five years after Licence Raj ended.
Ironically the acronym, BIMARU, lives on as an electoral pejorative. Time to set the record straight—at the least as a tribute to the late demographer Ashish Bose.
Recommended Viewing/Reading
Sharing the latest post of Capital Calculus on StratNews Global.
A few weeks ago Hamas, the militant organisation governing Gaza, launched a deadly attack on Israel. Not only did it plunge the Middle East into chaos it triggered a surge in geopolitical risks.
More worryingly the latest regional conflict highlights the new fault lines in global polity. Something which is causing geoeconomic fragmentation. Unchecked this trend could undo the gains of the last few decades from globalisation. Worse, it will lower global growth momentum, especially for China—which at one time was the global growth hub.
What does this mean for the world and India? To answer this and more we spoke to Harsh Pant, Professor of International Studies, King’s College, London.
Sharing the link below. Do watch and share your thoughts.
Till we meet again next week, stay safe.
Dear Anil
Thanks for discussing about Bimaru- an interesting acronym coined by the late Ashish Bose. This was a great way of paying tribute to a great demographer by linking it to the upcoming elections. We have been hearing about population control for decades now. Singling out a few States is not fair. They will naturally show a high rate of population growth simply because of the density of population. Ironically this very population works as the magical vote bank during the time of elections. Everyone is out to woo the common man. The added benefit of more seats in the Parliament can't be overlooked.
The overwhelming population of India really got highlighted during the Covid times. The mind-boggling figures of the number of vaccines administered made us realize that we far exceed the population of various countries put together! Interestingly we seem to have found viable solutions to various other maladies afflicting our country- be it poverty, shortage of drinking water, electricity, food grains and so on. A workable solution for population control which is effective as well as acceptable still eludes us.
Dear Anil,
Excellent article on Ashish Bose, one of India s best economic analyst and demographer.His contribution to the study of differentiated growth rates of population in various states of India, their causes and implications in terms of fertility rates, mortality, urbanization, internal migration ,work force etc cannot be forgotten. He was also involved in formulating urban demographic details of India. You have explained the term BIMARU so well, most of the people associate it only with slow economic growth of these states.