The population of the world in the last about 200 years has grown to around 8 billion. But the prediction of Thomas Malthus that the world would run out of food due to its growing population, has not yet come exactly true.
There is no doubt, Malthus did not foresee that at some time in the future, there would be a spectacular increase in food production as a result of new kinds of seeds and new methods of crop-production and that the earth would not produce exactly in arithmetic progression, yet no sensible person can deny that, after all, there is an upper limit to production of subsistence by the earth.
One can see that, even today, in most of the underdeveloped countries, the situation is still Malthusian and the people there do not have enough food. It is a well-established fact that the population growth-rate in these countries makes it extremely difficult for their governments to eradicate poverty and unemployment and to give proper education and health care to people there.
The reason for this is that no sincere and concrete steps are taken to give a high degree of clarity to the people in regard to the impact of high population growth on the standard of living, quality of environment, burden on resources, public health-system, employment opportunities, etc…
Another factor that is responsible for this critical situation is the highly consumeristic and wasteful life style of affluent nations or of affluent sections of society in the same country, It is not known to many that about 80% of the gross world-products are consumed by the developed countries which constitute only 20% of the world-population while remaining world population that dwell in developing countries gets only 15% of gross world products. So, again there is a need to give clarity to the people about the urgent need for simplicity in life.
Hence, people of developing nations should be made to understand that mere charity by organisations cannot solve the problems of poverty and hunger, created by exploitation, social injustice and the utterly selfish and wasteful life-style of some nations or some sections of society.
Many scholarly people across the globe have made a strong observation and said that Charity alone would not serve the purpose. One has, therefore, to reiterate that what is required more is Clarity, by means of such knowledge that brings in its wake, the highly needed moral values of social justice, brotherhood, love and inspiration to live a simple and sober life.
Remember! Unless the attitudes and lifestyles of people are changed and are based on values, the current world situation would remain unresolved.
The writer is a spiritual educator and popular columnist for publications across India, Nepal and the UK, and has written more than 8,000 columns. He can be contacted at nikunjji@gmail.com / www.brahmakumaris.com
