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Malthusian Menace. But more improvement in food production must be matched by population control if India is ever to feed herself. Nehru's first Five-Year Plan was meant to make the nation self-sufficient agriculturally, but without a firm program of family planning, it fell sadly short of the mark. Shastri, too, has failed to face up to the Malthusian menace of India's birth rate. Every year the country's crop of new babies exceeds the population of New York City. When pressed about birth control, Shastri smiles: "I hesitate to give advice on this matter because I already have six children." Shastri's female Health Minister, Dr. Shushila Nayar, is little help: she has spent only a third of the funds in last year's budget for birth control.
Even the most optimistic of planned parenthood enthusiasts lose hope at the problems that India's vast illiterate, tradition-bound populace presents. Indian wives feel that they can justify their dowry only by proving fertility, and such contraceptives as diaphragms and birth control pills are either too complicated or too expensive. Best hope for the future are the intrauterine devices that are simple, cheap and reliable. Most popular now in India is the "coil," a plastic, S-shaped loop inserted in the womb, which can be removed if the woman wants a child. India's first coil factory is already producing 15,000 loops a day, and government doctors travel through the countryside, explaining their use to the peasantry.
View from the Falls. Shastri's compulsion to compromise was better applied in the great January language crisis. In that month, India adopted Hindi (which only 40% of Indians speak) as the nation's official language. Southern Indians — speaking mostly Tamil or Telugu—rose up in a wave of riots, murders and suicides to protest so blatant a move on the part of the "arrogant" Indo-Aryans of the north. Shastri muddled through several weeks of bloodshed, finally decided to rescind the January order and for the moment retain English as well as 14 southern languages. "We have to find some middle course," he temporized. More than a decade ago, Nehru toyed with the idea of making English the official language (he himself could barely speak Hindi) but dropped the notion when he realized it would undercut his support among the masses.
In her foreign relations, India is confronted with problems as severe as those at home, but in the diplomatic field Shastri's vagueness and middle-course tendencies are less likely to cause trouble. Red China still occupies 14,500 sq. mi. of Himalayan India; the injection of massive U.S. military aid has helped deter Peking from pushing downhill into the oil-and rice-rich plains along the Brahmaputra adjacent to Burma. Pakistan — lately linked to Red China through a reciprocal defense agreement — remains India's implacable enemy. Shastri showed boldness at the run-in on the Rann, but again he compromised a bit: in the settlement concluded last month, India surrendered a few square miles of the Rann. Since the bleak reach of mud and desert is largely under water during the current monsoon season, it scarcely counts against him.