Uttar Pradesh’s proposed bill to enforce a “two-child norm” tries to link state government jobs, local government positions and welfare to the two-child norm through a series of incentives and disincentives. With the communally tinged rhetoric around this bill gaining currency, it is necessary to revisit the Supreme Court’s controversial judgment in Javed v State of Haryana (2003) where such problematic provisions relating to panchayat elections were upheld.
The Uttar Pradesh (UP) Population (Control, Stabillisation and Welfare) Bill, 2021 was recently made public by the UP State Law Commission with a view to seek public comments (Upadhyay 2021). The bill which intends to enforce a two-child norm across UP seeks to do so through a mixture of incentives and disincentives which relate to public employment with the state, eligibility to contest local body elections and entitlement to welfare benefits and subsidies from the state.