THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Sunday stressed that demographic evolution should be organic and said the inorganic demographic variations taking place with the intent to increase the demographic component was alarming.
Delivering the P Parameswaran memorial lecture on ‘Democracy, demography, development and the future of Bharat’ organised by Bharatheeya Vichara Kendram in Thiruvananthapuram, Dhankhar said the nation is faced with grim challenges when it comes to demography.
“We are at a stage where we can neither overlook nor countenance this highly destabilising development. We have to be extremely alert,” he said, maintaining that demography should not be confused with majoritarianism and asserting that ‘we cannot have a society divided into these two camps.”
Dhankhar also expressed concerns over illegal migration, saying the challenge it posed was daunting and policy interventions alone were insufficient. “These people come, make demand on our employment, on our health, on our education sectors and then become a factor in electoral politics. This has to be addressed,” he opined.
Dhankhar said the election outcome has been foreclosed by demographic dislocations in the past few years in “fortresses in the country” and called for “courageously thwarting” such dislocations. He also drew attention to religious conversions and said the country is facing challenge due to “the strategised, orchestrated, financial misadventures aimed at affecting conversions.”
Observing that politics has become polarised, Dhankhar said the Parliament’s stature as a constructive platform has been undermined.
“It has to be the impregnable citadel of dialogue, debate, discussion and deliberation and these facets were exemplified by the Constituent Assembly that worked for about three years in 18 sessions. And what do we see today? Dialogue, deliberation, and others have yielded to disturbance and disruption,” he said.
Highlighting the economic growth of the country, Dhankhar said India has become the fastest growing global economy in the last one decade and it’s no longer termed as a country of snake charmers. “It’s charming the world with the potential it has,” he said.