NEW DELHI (AlertNet) - A church in India’s southern state of Kerala is encouraging its followers to produce more children by offering them a fixed-term bond and help to pay for education, the Hindustan Times reported on Wednesday.
Unlike more developed nations which fear their ageing or shrinking populations could slow their economies, India has long sought to bring down population growth to a level it can handle.
The demographic bulge in its population, pegged by the Census of India at 1.21 billion earlier this year, has left successive governments unable to find enough schools, jobs or food for their people.
But, according to the paper, Kerala’s Syro-Malabar church wants parents to shrug off the “shame” of having many children and “uphold the true Christian concept of sexuality, which blends love and procreation”.
“Parents who have many children should get over any sense of shame. It is recognition for such parents,” Salu Abraham Mecheril, a spokesman of the church’s pro-life committee, was quoted as saying.
The church will offer a 10,000 rupee ($200) bond to parents who have a fifth child, redeemable after 18 years, the paper reported.
The offer comes just after a government report on population control which recommended a heavy fine for parents who have more than two children, according to the paper.
The Christian population in predominantly Hindu India is declining, it added.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
