FOCUS
Isn't POPULATION
a Problem in India !
a Problem in India !
11th July 2009 came and got lost into the national amnesia. Another 50,000 got added by the next morning to the ballooning demographic numbing numbers. Quite fra
nkly, how many of us were truly concerned? Word Population Day came and passed off as just another day. The fourth estate, whether electronic media, the print media or the radio were deafeningly silent on the problem, supposedly the MOTHER OF ALL PROBLEMS.
"We are sitting on a volcano. It is unfortunate that India has just 2.5% of the global land area but 17% of the world population. Large population means greater number of have-nots which is the root cause of poverty, unemployment. That’s how naxalism came up". Mr.Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Union Health Minister was to have reportedly stated while talking on the ‘World Population Day’ at New Delhi.
This is for the first time that a union minister has spoken so seriously about the issue in recent times. Such seriousness is glaring by its absence in the corridors of power. Hope this minister shows the same seriousness in acting on the larger issues involved.
- Editor
nkly, how many of us were truly concerned? Word Population Day came and passed off as just another day. The fourth estate, whether electronic media, the print media or the radio were deafeningly silent on the problem, supposedly the MOTHER OF ALL PROBLEMS."We are sitting on a volcano. It is unfortunate that India has just 2.5% of the global land area but 17% of the world population. Large population means greater number of have-nots which is the root cause of poverty, unemployment. That’s how naxalism came up". Mr.Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Union Health Minister was to have reportedly stated while talking on the ‘World Population Day’ at New Delhi.
This is for the first time that a union minister has spoken so seriously about the issue in recent times. Such seriousness is glaring by its absence in the corridors of power. Hope this minister shows the same seriousness in acting on the larger issues involved.
- Editor
The twentieth World Population Day on eleventh of last month has passed just like any other day for us. The day though don’t get much public and media attention as the Valentines Day, the Health & Family Welfare Ministry gives a full or half page advertisement in newspapers. But the point is our country has succeeded to reach 1,166,310,000 population, on 11th July 2009, which makes up about 17.23% of world population, whereas China the most populous country in the world reached 1,331,800,000 (19.67%). We Indians feel proud of being a part of the largest democracy in the world, which perhaps is on the way to achieve the dubious title of the most populous country in the world beating China, in the midst of mounting problems. There is fierce competition for the nation’s limited natural resources leading to quarrels between states, between communities and even within families. Our land and water resources are being exploited to the hilt. Recent disputes over rivers in different states of South India prove that our country is facing an intense crisis of resources. The exploitation of mineral resources is threatening forests, nature reserves, and ecology. Seventy percent of the energy resources need to be imported putting constant pressure on us to export more or face currency devaluation. The Indian population shows a high growth trajectory and the country is adding nearly 22 million people to the world population each year. Despite the fact that India was the first country in the world to have a population policy, not much has been achieved in terms of population control. Besides, there are still many people in India who believe children as god’s gift and have more and more children. In rural areas boys are believed to be the economic asset and couples end up in delivering 5 to 6 girls waiting for a boy child. A sober fact noted by The National Population Policy 2000 is that only 44 per cent of India’s 168 million couples in the reproductive age group use effective contraception, which means majority are not using contraceptives, thus unwittingly contribute to the burgeoning numbers.
. The population of South Asia is approximately 2.5 billion and it is almost 1/4 of the entire global population. And our country has a big chunk in the population of South Asia, and is home for approximately 1/6 of the world population. So, we can easily appreciate that our country is presently too much overpopulated. It is the mother of all problems and is ever growing and never well thought-out one. We all know that our country had thinkers like Jawaharlal Nehru, who started off to contain this ever present and ever growing problem. Nehru’s government looked into the issue from the point of food supply, social reform and unemployment in the national developmental planning. As a result of these initiatives the National Family Planning Programme was introduced in 1952. From mere 15 lakh allowances in the fist five year plan allocation increased to Rs.2940.60 crores in the tenth plan. However during 1991-2001, population of our country increased by a whopping 180 million. Unfortunately population growth in India largely contributed to poverty proliferation and urban migration. It is also considered as one of the major causes of illiteracy and regional disparities, besides poverty.
After independence, population growth was seen as an urgent problem related to economic development with limited resources. In 1952, a sub-committee appointed by the Planning Commission asked the government to provide sterilization facilities and contraceptive advice through existing health services, in order to limit family size, and also to institute studies on population. The Reorganized Family Planning Programme ended up focusing on programmes for insertion and sterilization camps only. Sterilization accounts for more than 75 per cent of total contraception in India, with female sterilization accounting for almost 95 per cent of all sterilizations. Men were seldom sterilized on the other hand. In 1976, the first National Population Policy talked of integrating family planning with general health care, of mother and child, the influence of female education, employment, age of marriage on family size, the effect of a high infant mortality rate, and so on. 1977 saw the Policy Statement on the Family Welfare Programme. The National Health Policy of 1983 emphasized the need for "securing the small family norm through voluntary efforts and moving towards the goal of population stabilization". Despite all these measures the billionth child was born in our country on May 12th 2000. The billion figures may be spurious because a lot of births in our urban slums and rural areas go unregistered and there is a huge population of immigrants from the neighbouring countries like Bangladesh and Nepal who are sometimes counted as Indian citizens and sometimes they escape being enumerated. It may be possible that the billionth child of our country was born earlier than 12th may 2000. Surely reaching a billion in population is not a laudable achievement for a country like India where one third of its population is below poverty line and millions of children are malnourished. The planning commission however identified that health , education, water supply, employment, per capita income and urbanization all be linked to fertility control and the national family planning programmes are heading towards achieving the control over the fertility rate and the population issues.
National Population Policy of India formulated in the year 2000, was with the long term objective of achieving a stable population by 2045, at a level consistent with the requirements of sustainable economic growth, social development, and environmental protection. The immediate objective of the policy was to address the unmet needs for contraception, health care infrastructure, and provision of health personnel, and to provide integrated service-delivery for basic reproductive and child health care. The medium-term objective is to bring the TFR (Total Fertility Rate) to replacement levels by 2010, through vigorous implementation of inter-sectoral operational strategies. TFR is the average number of children each women would have in her life time.
National Population Policy pursues to achieve following Socio-Demographic goals by 2010:
• Address the unmet needs for basic reproductive and child health services, supplies and infrastructure.
• Make school education up to age 14 free and compulsory, and reduce drop outs at primary and secondary school levels for both boys and girls.
• Reduce infant mortality rate to below the current 30 per 1000 live births.
• Achieve universal immunization of children against all preventable diseases.
• Promote delayed marriage for girls, not earlier than age 18 and preferably after 20 years of age.
• Achieve 100 per cent registration of births, deaths, marriage and pregnancy.
• Promote vigorously the small family norm to achieve replacement levels of TFR.
• Bring about convergence in implementation of related social sector programs so that family welfare becomes a people centered programme.
A story appeared recently in media speaks about the call centres situated in the Delhi for helping those who want family planning, (See Box)
Population is the only non-depleting resource and a parameter of a
country’s development. In a country like India where the factors contributing to population growth far outweigh the factors for development, excess population is no longer a resource but a burden to society. India’s population policy has been guided by the perception that a growing population is a serious impediment to development efforts, but nothing serious is happening to stem the uncontrolled growth of population. The census figures showed a Crude Birth Rate (CBR) of over 45/1,000 population every year; That is, over 45 children were born for every 1,000 people.
India’s urban population has doubled from 109 million to 218 million during the last two decades and is estimated to cross 300 million. As a consequence, cities are facing the problem of expanding urban slums. It is recognized that the biggest curse to the lives of millions of Indians is poverty. Though the rural poor have always been a deprived lot, their urban counterparts are not an inch better off. In some cases, it may be even worse off.
Having migrated to towns and cities in search of a better life, they now survive under the most appalling of living conditions, with scant regard to the basics of cleanliness and hygiene. Awareness of healthy living habits is woefully lacking. Although the mortality rate has fallen over the years, infant mortality and deaths related to childbirth are still disturbingly high and common all over India, with large sections of the female population and a fair section of the males yet to receive their first lessons in literacy and hygiene. Indian life indeed presents a classic example of being trapped in a vicious circle of poverty, from which there appears to be no escape. Nevertheless, a close inspection of the nature of these ills and inequalities reveal a single root cause lying at the core of our national life: Population.
Population of a country is both an asset and a liability. There should be enough people to work as well as enough employment opportunities to provide income for the people. People in rural areas, where there are only seasonal jobs available, cannot sustain themselves and move to urban areas where there are jobs. And the cities experience large population growth as the workers and their families move there to obtain gainful employment. This creates a huge section of unskilled labour force in the cities. Economic reforms have no doubt brought opportunities for the skilled and educated labour force, but not to the extent that it can sustain the huge work force available in the world. According to a report by the Washington-based Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), the combined sales of the world’s top 200 MNCs is now greater than the combined GDP of all but the world’s nine largest national economies. Yet, the total direct employment generated by these multinationals is a mere 18.8 millions -one-hundredth of one per cent of the global workforce.
India, being a country of more young people, is facing shortage of opportunities in both organized and unorganized employment. The country’s labour force is growing at a rate of 2.5% per year but employment provided to this work force is growing only at a rate of 2.3% per year. A large section of Indian work force (60%) is self employed and many of them are poor illiterate and unskilled people. Their average income is meagre. This section also conceals a large number of underemployed, whose contribution to the family kitty is negligible. Out of the total work force any where around 30% are casual workers who don’t work all through the year. And the issue is further intensified because 90% of India’s labour force works in the unorganized sector. Thus reduction in number is the only option available to Indian development planners. Therefore, India has to go in for a very strong and effective Population Policy. We should learn from others who are better than us instead of deluding ourselves as a Super power in the making. We can’t even ensure two square meals a day to our people and we are having misplaced visions of our greatness. We should NOT only aim to survive, as we have done in the past, but plan to improve the standard of living of all our people. The government’s schemes like National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (launched in 2006) tries to provide opportunities for the unskilled labour force in the rural areas. The scheme hopes to guaranty employment of 13.8 crore persons for 100 days covering 3.51 crore house- holds. The scheme has also proposed an allowance of 30,100 crores for the year 2009-10. While this is no doubt an innovative scheme, this simply does not address the issue of empowerment. While resources and therefore employment generation is more or less inelastic, only way is to curb the number of mouths needing food, shelter and clothing.
There is a serious fall in the employment generated after the global melt down. Though being the first country to initiate population control India doesn’t have a population control ministry. The government needs to be more proactive to control the population. While 22 million are born every year in India, it is ONLY 10 million in China. China has had a more effective population policy than India, although they started in 1970. There must be gentle and indirect disincentives for having large families. Successful examples of other countries, even other states, must be communicated. Newspapers & media should be full of such stories every hour, every day and not only on World Population Day! Because of China’s successful Population Policy, China has added 300 million less people in last 3 decades. India has 40% of its people below poverty line. And still some thinkers and leaders of our country mention that our population is our strength. How can they make such statements, with so much poverty, illiteracy & a low standard of living? The poor like all else, would love to have a better life. Population control and therefore eradication of poverty is not on the top priority agenda of any political party, inspite of the above facts. After 6 decades of independence we are still very poor, where around 400 million earn less than Rs1500/month. What will be the scene, after we add another 550 million people by 2045? This is like adding another USA + Europe, but without the standard of living that they have. Can’t we see the disaster ahead?
The communication or the promotion of family planning issues should be so powerful that people who are hesitant to practice small family measures are made to accept the idea. The small family should be promoted as an ideal one. There should be incentives, political economical and social, for parents having one or two children. Of course there are people in our country, who say that their religion doesn’t permit, but it is better to have one or two healthy and well brought up children than having a number of malnourished and unhealthy children. These children shall grow into liabilities to both family and the country. The age old beliefs of having a big family was ripe for the society centuries back, but the modern parents have responsibilities of a wide range, which is not limited to only giving two square meals for your child. We have to make the coming generation skilled and educated so that they can sustain themselves anywhere they may be, which will, of course take us to a future, where we can really say: ‘India is shining’.
WHEN SHALL WE HAVE AN INDIA WHICH IS RESPONSIVE AS WELL AS RESPONSIBLE?
. The population of South Asia is approximately 2.5 billion and it is almost 1/4 of the entire global population. And our country has a big chunk in the population of South Asia, and is home for approximately 1/6 of the world population. So, we can easily appreciate that our country is presently too much overpopulated. It is the mother of all problems and is ever growing and never well thought-out one. We all know that our country had thinkers like Jawaharlal Nehru, who started off to contain this ever present and ever growing problem. Nehru’s government looked into the issue from the point of food supply, social reform and unemployment in the national developmental planning. As a result of these initiatives the National Family Planning Programme was introduced in 1952. From mere 15 lakh allowances in the fist five year plan allocation increased to Rs.2940.60 crores in the tenth plan. However during 1991-2001, population of our country increased by a whopping 180 million. Unfortunately population growth in India largely contributed to poverty proliferation and urban migration. It is also considered as one of the major causes of illiteracy and regional disparities, besides poverty.
After independence, population growth was seen as an urgent problem related to economic development with limited resources. In 1952, a sub-committee appointed by the Planning Commission asked the government to provide sterilization facilities and contraceptive advice through existing health services, in order to limit family size, and also to institute studies on population. The Reorganized Family Planning Programme ended up focusing on programmes for insertion and sterilization camps only. Sterilization accounts for more than 75 per cent of total contraception in India, with female sterilization accounting for almost 95 per cent of all sterilizations. Men were seldom sterilized on the other hand. In 1976, the first National Population Policy talked of integrating family planning with general health care, of mother and child, the influence of female education, employment, age of marriage on family size, the effect of a high infant mortality rate, and so on. 1977 saw the Policy Statement on the Family Welfare Programme. The National Health Policy of 1983 emphasized the need for "securing the small family norm through voluntary efforts and moving towards the goal of population stabilization". Despite all these measures the billionth child was born in our country on May 12th 2000. The billion figures may be spurious because a lot of births in our urban slums and rural areas go unregistered and there is a huge population of immigrants from the neighbouring countries like Bangladesh and Nepal who are sometimes counted as Indian citizens and sometimes they escape being enumerated. It may be possible that the billionth child of our country was born earlier than 12th may 2000. Surely reaching a billion in population is not a laudable achievement for a country like India where one third of its population is below poverty line and millions of children are malnourished. The planning commission however identified that health , education, water supply, employment, per capita income and urbanization all be linked to fertility control and the national family planning programmes are heading towards achieving the control over the fertility rate and the population issues.
National Population Policy of India formulated in the year 2000, was with the long term objective of achieving a stable population by 2045, at a level consistent with the requirements of sustainable economic growth, social development, and environmental protection. The immediate objective of the policy was to address the unmet needs for contraception, health care infrastructure, and provision of health personnel, and to provide integrated service-delivery for basic reproductive and child health care. The medium-term objective is to bring the TFR (Total Fertility Rate) to replacement levels by 2010, through vigorous implementation of inter-sectoral operational strategies. TFR is the average number of children each women would have in her life time.
National Population Policy pursues to achieve following Socio-Demographic goals by 2010:
• Address the unmet needs for basic reproductive and child health services, supplies and infrastructure.
• Make school education up to age 14 free and compulsory, and reduce drop outs at primary and secondary school levels for both boys and girls.
• Reduce infant mortality rate to below the current 30 per 1000 live births.
• Achieve universal immunization of children against all preventable diseases.
• Promote delayed marriage for girls, not earlier than age 18 and preferably after 20 years of age.
• Achieve 100 per cent registration of births, deaths, marriage and pregnancy.
• Promote vigorously the small family norm to achieve replacement levels of TFR.
• Bring about convergence in implementation of related social sector programs so that family welfare becomes a people centered programme.
A story appeared recently in media speaks about the call centres situated in the Delhi for helping those who want family planning, (See Box)
Population is the only non-depleting resource and a parameter of a
country’s development. In a country like India where the factors contributing to population growth far outweigh the factors for development, excess population is no longer a resource but a burden to society. India’s population policy has been guided by the perception that a growing population is a serious impediment to development efforts, but nothing serious is happening to stem the uncontrolled growth of population. The census figures showed a Crude Birth Rate (CBR) of over 45/1,000 population every year; That is, over 45 children were born for every 1,000 people.
India’s urban population has doubled from 109 million to 218 million during the last two decades and is estimated to cross 300 million. As a consequence, cities are facing the problem of expanding urban slums. It is recognized that the biggest curse to the lives of millions of Indians is poverty. Though the rural poor have always been a deprived lot, their urban counterparts are not an inch better off. In some cases, it may be even worse off.
Having migrated to towns and cities in search of a better life, they now survive under the most appalling of living conditions, with scant regard to the basics of cleanliness and hygiene. Awareness of healthy living habits is woefully lacking. Although the mortality rate has fallen over the years, infant mortality and deaths related to childbirth are still disturbingly high and common all over India, with large sections of the female population and a fair section of the males yet to receive their first lessons in literacy and hygiene. Indian life indeed presents a classic example of being trapped in a vicious circle of poverty, from which there appears to be no escape. Nevertheless, a close inspection of the nature of these ills and inequalities reveal a single root cause lying at the core of our national life: Population.
Population of a country is both an asset and a liability. There should be enough people to work as well as enough employment opportunities to provide income for the people. People in rural areas, where there are only seasonal jobs available, cannot sustain themselves and move to urban areas where there are jobs. And the cities experience large population growth as the workers and their families move there to obtain gainful employment. This creates a huge section of unskilled labour force in the cities. Economic reforms have no doubt brought opportunities for the skilled and educated labour force, but not to the extent that it can sustain the huge work force available in the world. According to a report by the Washington-based Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), the combined sales of the world’s top 200 MNCs is now greater than the combined GDP of all but the world’s nine largest national economies. Yet, the total direct employment generated by these multinationals is a mere 18.8 millions -one-hundredth of one per cent of the global workforce.
India, being a country of more young people, is facing shortage of opportunities in both organized and unorganized employment. The country’s labour force is growing at a rate of 2.5% per year but employment provided to this work force is growing only at a rate of 2.3% per year. A large section of Indian work force (60%) is self employed and many of them are poor illiterate and unskilled people. Their average income is meagre. This section also conceals a large number of underemployed, whose contribution to the family kitty is negligible. Out of the total work force any where around 30% are casual workers who don’t work all through the year. And the issue is further intensified because 90% of India’s labour force works in the unorganized sector. Thus reduction in number is the only option available to Indian development planners. Therefore, India has to go in for a very strong and effective Population Policy. We should learn from others who are better than us instead of deluding ourselves as a Super power in the making. We can’t even ensure two square meals a day to our people and we are having misplaced visions of our greatness. We should NOT only aim to survive, as we have done in the past, but plan to improve the standard of living of all our people. The government’s schemes like National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (launched in 2006) tries to provide opportunities for the unskilled labour force in the rural areas. The scheme hopes to guaranty employment of 13.8 crore persons for 100 days covering 3.51 crore house- holds. The scheme has also proposed an allowance of 30,100 crores for the year 2009-10. While this is no doubt an innovative scheme, this simply does not address the issue of empowerment. While resources and therefore employment generation is more or less inelastic, only way is to curb the number of mouths needing food, shelter and clothing.
There is a serious fall in the employment generated after the global melt down. Though being the first country to initiate population control India doesn’t have a population control ministry. The government needs to be more proactive to control the population. While 22 million are born every year in India, it is ONLY 10 million in China. China has had a more effective population policy than India, although they started in 1970. There must be gentle and indirect disincentives for having large families. Successful examples of other countries, even other states, must be communicated. Newspapers & media should be full of such stories every hour, every day and not only on World Population Day! Because of China’s successful Population Policy, China has added 300 million less people in last 3 decades. India has 40% of its people below poverty line. And still some thinkers and leaders of our country mention that our population is our strength. How can they make such statements, with so much poverty, illiteracy & a low standard of living? The poor like all else, would love to have a better life. Population control and therefore eradication of poverty is not on the top priority agenda of any political party, inspite of the above facts. After 6 decades of independence we are still very poor, where around 400 million earn less than Rs1500/month. What will be the scene, after we add another 550 million people by 2045? This is like adding another USA + Europe, but without the standard of living that they have. Can’t we see the disaster ahead?
The communication or the promotion of family planning issues should be so powerful that people who are hesitant to practice small family measures are made to accept the idea. The small family should be promoted as an ideal one. There should be incentives, political economical and social, for parents having one or two children. Of course there are people in our country, who say that their religion doesn’t permit, but it is better to have one or two healthy and well brought up children than having a number of malnourished and unhealthy children. These children shall grow into liabilities to both family and the country. The age old beliefs of having a big family was ripe for the society centuries back, but the modern parents have responsibilities of a wide range, which is not limited to only giving two square meals for your child. We have to make the coming generation skilled and educated so that they can sustain themselves anywhere they may be, which will, of course take us to a future, where we can really say: ‘India is shining’.
WHEN SHALL WE HAVE AN INDIA WHICH IS RESPONSIVE AS WELL AS RESPONSIBLE?
Nafeesa M.P
with inputs from I&C
Birth control
In a country where an estimated 50% of all pregnancies are unplanned and certainly most of the unplanned ones being unwanted, it is high time India changed her mindset on contraceptive usage and prevent population explosion. This can only happen when people are fully aware of the various contraceptive methods so that they are confident about using them.
With population of 1.129 billion, India surely need a comprehensive family planning programme and a contraceptive culture in place. With rising incidence of HIV/AIDS the usage of condoms both as a contraceptive and protection from sexually transmitted diseases (STD) is vital. With increasing number of women concentrating on their careers and delaying their marriages and pregnancy, the practice of contraception assumes even more significance.
Birth control is the prevention of conception or implantation of fertilized ovum or termination of pregnancy. Contraception is effective when one has the knowledge of various forms of contraceptives and their usages. Lack of knowledge and strong belief in the myths around contraception result in unwanted pregnancies and sometimes unsafe abortions. It is important to educate ourselves and remove any doubts on contraception to lead a healthy and balanced family life.There are various types of contraceptives used as birth control methods. However, not all are equally affective. Depending on their convenience, it is for the couple to decide on the type of contraception. Importantly, the pregnancy or failure rate is the primary consideration for choosing a contraceptive.
The different methods are natural forms (like sexual abstinence during fertile period, temperature method, mucus method, withdrawal method, rhythm method); barrier methods (like condoms, diaphragms which reduce the risk of AIDS, STDs and untimely pregnancies); oral contraceptive pills and intrauterine devices.
Birth control pills are oral contraceptives containing oestrogen and progesterone or synthetic progesterone alone. They are the most convenient method for all.
With population of 1.129 billion, India surely need a comprehensive family planning programme and a contraceptive culture in place. With rising incidence of HIV/AIDS the usage of condoms both as a contraceptive and protection from sexually transmitted diseases (STD) is vital. With increasing number of women concentrating on their careers and delaying their marriages and pregnancy, the practice of contraception assumes even more significance.
Birth control is the prevention of conception or implantation of fertilized ovum or termination of pregnancy. Contraception is effective when one has the knowledge of various forms of contraceptives and their usages. Lack of knowledge and strong belief in the myths around contraception result in unwanted pregnancies and sometimes unsafe abortions. It is important to educate ourselves and remove any doubts on contraception to lead a healthy and balanced family life.There are various types of contraceptives used as birth control methods. However, not all are equally affective. Depending on their convenience, it is for the couple to decide on the type of contraception. Importantly, the pregnancy or failure rate is the primary consideration for choosing a contraceptive.
The different methods are natural forms (like sexual abstinence during fertile period, temperature method, mucus method, withdrawal method, rhythm method); barrier methods (like condoms, diaphragms which reduce the risk of AIDS, STDs and untimely pregnancies); oral contraceptive pills and intrauterine devices.
Birth control pills are oral contraceptives containing oestrogen and progesterone or synthetic progesterone alone. They are the most convenient method for all.
Population of India
Population wise, India is second in the world. On May 11, 2000 India’s population reached the one billion mark. The population increased to 1,027 million in the march, 2001 (531.3 m. males and 495.7m. females). India accounts for a meagre 2.4% of the world surface area of 135.79 million sq. km. but it is estimated that at the present rate of growth (1.93% during 1991-2001) India will overtake China by 2050. Look at the growth of population from 1901 to 2001.
UNKNOWN HISTORY
Admiral Zheng’s Voyages
The age of Discovery conjures up images of intrepid Europeans seeking passage to the mysterious East. But starting in 1405, Chinese Admiral Zheng led a series of spectacular voyages to the West.
Zheng commanded a fleet of 300 vessels, some nearly five times the size of Columbus’s ships. His ships were served by 28,000 men (as compared with the 90 men on the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria). Admiral Zheng’s biggest ship was the treasure ship. Measuring 440 feet long and 180 feet in beam, it was powered by nine masts carrying billowing red silk sails. The ship was loaded with gold, silver, oils, and silks, which the Chinese gave as gifts to the other countries they visited to show off their own wealth and power.
Over the course of seven voyages, Zheng’s fleet journeyed as far as the southern tip of Africa- not in search of treasure or trade, but to show off the might and power of the Ming Dynasty. Recent research holds out the tantalizing possibility that he may have gone ever farther, sailing a huge fleet around the Cape of Good Hope and piloting it as far as Europe or even across the Atlantic to the Caribbean- all more than 75 years before the famous voyages of the Italian Christopher Columbus.
Just as remarkable as the boldness of these exploits is the speed with which they came to an end. In 1433, shortly after Zheng’s last voyage, Confucian scholars convinced the emperor that such expeditions were too costly, that China should turn its focus inward and isolate itself from the rest of the world. By 1500 the Chinese court had made it a capital offense to build an oceangoing ship, and even went so far as to strike Admiral Zheng’s accomplishments from the official record.
So just about the time Europe was broadening its horizons and sending explorers out on the seas across the globe, China was slamming shut its doors to outsiders.
Zheng commanded a fleet of 300 vessels, some nearly five times the size of Columbus’s ships. His ships were served by 28,000 men (as compared with the 90 men on the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria). Admiral Zheng’s biggest ship was the treasure ship. Measuring 440 feet long and 180 feet in beam, it was powered by nine masts carrying billowing red silk sails. The ship was loaded with gold, silver, oils, and silks, which the Chinese gave as gifts to the other countries they visited to show off their own wealth and power.
Over the course of seven voyages, Zheng’s fleet journeyed as far as the southern tip of Africa- not in search of treasure or trade, but to show off the might and power of the Ming Dynasty. Recent research holds out the tantalizing possibility that he may have gone ever farther, sailing a huge fleet around the Cape of Good Hope and piloting it as far as Europe or even across the Atlantic to the Caribbean- all more than 75 years before the famous voyages of the Italian Christopher Columbus.
Just as remarkable as the boldness of these exploits is the speed with which they came to an end. In 1433, shortly after Zheng’s last voyage, Confucian scholars convinced the emperor that such expeditions were too costly, that China should turn its focus inward and isolate itself from the rest of the world. By 1500 the Chinese court had made it a capital offense to build an oceangoing ship, and even went so far as to strike Admiral Zheng’s accomplishments from the official record.
So just about the time Europe was broadening its horizons and sending explorers out on the seas across the globe, China was slamming shut its doors to outsiders.
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