INDIA'S REAL PROBLEM
Ste,—Having in his first letter described as " misleading" Professor Hill's reference to a continuing increase in India's population Mr. Sen now ascribes to Dr. K. C. K. E. Raja the responsibility for "the notion that the rate of increase of the Indian population is likely to fall rapidly." The Census Report, however, neither quotes, not attributes to Dr. Raja, any such statement, which is patently at variance with all that the Report contains and with its repeated emphasis upon the "nature of the portent exposed for the attention of government and citizens alike" (Report, P. 34).
The Report quotes Dr. Raja's tables indicating that the proportion (not the actual number) of females expected to enter the reproductive period in 1941 should be lower than in 1931, and on this basis remarks that "there would be some grounds for a view that in 1931 the reproduc- tive position . . . may indeed have been at a peak." But it does not enter into a discussion of that view nor does it express agreement with it, since it would be reasonable to expect that reduction in mortality rates would have some bearing on the question.
So far as actual numbers are concerned it must be obvious that if the 1931 Census totals were too low any upward revision would increase the numbers attaining the reproductive ages in 1941, while if totals are incorrect the same may apply to Dr. Raja's tables.
It is a perversion of Professor Hill's notable article to transform it into an appeal for the speedy setting up of a purely Indian government. The article clearly sets aside the old approach from the political stand- point, pointing out that India's vital problems would be "the same under any constitution," and calling for recognition of the need for such things as "more scientific farming, stronger administrative control, and drastic social change." I out the emphasis upon the third of these, for no ono
closely acquainted with Indian conditions can deny that the fundamental problem in India is to alter the outlook of the people and so remove the real underlying cause of India's low factor of safety.—Yours faithfully,
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