A decade ago I traveled shoestring over India and spent time in a lot of rural areas. In the north (especially Uttar Pradesh) I was overwhelmed by the overpopulation. When I mentioned this to middle-class Indians as a problem for the country, they generally didn’t agree that it was a problem. Some would respond that a larger population surely equates to more global clout, so this was a way for India to grow strong and assert itself on the world stage. Sometimes they would accuse me of wanting to undermine India’s growth, since family-planning strategies were supposedly just a way for the West to keep the Third World down.

I wonder if this is still a common attitude now, ten years on, when environmentalism may have made more inroads among India’s middle class, and when everyone is suffering from the obvious effects of so large a population, like air pollution.