To change the current situation, the lifestyles of the people need to change, says Rajyogi Brahmakumar Nikunj ji

Population, when unchecked, increases at a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio...,” said Thomas Malthus in his thesis, titled An Essay on the Principle of Population, which was  published in 1798. When he made this observation, the world-population was not even one billion. During the last 200 years, it has grown to around 7.8 billion. And the prediction of 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 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. But, strangely, we find that there is no effective clarity in regard to this hard fact in the minds of those who formulate national policies.

One can see that, even today, in most of the under developed 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. So the living conditions for large sections of people there are really poor.

In such a critical situation of stark poverty, high incidence of disease and extreme scarcity of health care facilities, many welfare and social service agencies voluntarily help the impoverished, the sick, the handicapped and the mentally unwell people. No doubt, immediate help in the form of food, medicine, shelter, health-care, etc. is needed for quite a large number of people and these charitable institutions do commendable social service. Nevertheless, the basic problem remains because the root of all these maladies is not eradicated.

The population in these poor countries continues to rise enormously and, alongside it, the number of poor unemployed, diseased and hungry people also continue to multiply. The reason for this is that no sincere and concrete steps are taken to give a high degree of clarity to the people.

Another factor that is responsible for this critical situation is the highly consumeristic and wasteful lifestyle of affluent nations or of affluent sections of society in the same country. It is not known to many that about 80 per cent of the gross world-products are consumed by the developed countries which constitute only 20 per cent of the world-population while remaining world population that dwell in developing countries gets only 15 per cent  of gross world products. So again there is need to give clarity to the people about the urgent need for simplicity in life. Hence, what people of developing nations should made to be understood that mere charity 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. In fact, some people have recently raised this vital question about the end-result of charity after a controversial documentary was made by a popular director in the West on charity work done by the organisations there.

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, abstinence from sex-lust and inspiration for a simple lifestyle. Remember, to change the current situation, the lifestyles of the people need to change.