Mamdanis’ Punjab connection goes back to India’s 1st birth control study

It was 1970 when Zohran Mamdani’s father Mahmood Mamdani, an acclaimed researcher, came to Punjab. His motivation was to evaluate the outcomes of “The Khanna Study”, India’s first major field study in birth control which experts from the Harvard School of Public Health led with help from Indian field officers.

Named after Punjab’s market town, where it was headquartered, the study centred on Punjab’s Manupur village and was the first birth control programme which had both the control population (not given contraception) and the test population (given contraception). It sought to study the impact of pills as a population control measure. Mamdani later proved it was a failure and explained why.

He presented the evaluation in “The Myth of Population Control”, which showed that investigators of ‘The Khanna Study’ paid practically no attention to the motivations of villagers to practice or not to practice birth control.

“The investigators assumed that the need for population control was self-evident and began to measure acceptance of contraceptives without defining what it means,” Mamdani’s conclusions showed, adding that the class biases and perceptions of investigators continued to draw wrong conclusions about the outcomes for years.

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Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday drew attention to New York City’s newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani quoting Jawaharlal Nehru’s immortal “Tryst with Destiny” speech in his victory address. Ramesh noted that the same lines had once inspired Scotland’s 2013 independence campaign. “Zohran Mamdani has just quoted from Nehru’s immortal speech. These very words were also used by Alex Salmond during his campaign for Scotland’s independence,” he posted on X.

Mamdani interviewed Punjab villagers and proved how they had accepted the contraceptives, but barely used them.

“Though the study investigators in the first year concluded that nearly 90 per cent villagers were in favour of contraception, it took years before they would admit that there was a great difference in numbers between those who were in favour of contraception in principle and those who would accept contraceptives when offered; between those who “accepted” contraceptives and those who admitted to “using” them; and, finally, between those who said they were “using” contraceptives and those who, in fact, used them,” said Mamdani.

His book challenged neo-Malthusian writings which argued that “overpopulation” was the major reason for poverty in underdeveloped countries and birth control was an answer.

What Mamdani concluded about Punjab of those years was — “People are not poor because they have large families; they have large families because they are poor.”

Explaining why ‘The Khanna Study’ failed, he said from an economic standpoint it would have been disastrous for Punjab’s villagers to practice birth control. “In an agrarian, peasant economy, children — especially sons — are a major asset. Without them, a family faces starvation; with them, there is at least a chance of prosperity,” he said, arguing that birth control was not necessarily an accurate solution to overpopulation.

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‘Dhoom Machale...’ the exuberant, celebratory track from the 2004 blockbuster Dhoom rounded off Zohran Mamdani’s victory speech, more evidence that New York’s newly elected mayor embraces his many identities with a light-as-souffle touch. As Mamdani concluded his speech, the title track of the Abhishek Bachchan-John Abraham starrer started playing in the background.

Mamdani’s accounts also reveal why Punjab was chosen for the project.

In July 1953, the Harvard School of Public Health prepared a report on the population problem, arguing that while recent advances in public health had led to a dramatic decline in death rates in underdeveloped countries, these very improvements had created a new challenge — rapidly rising populations.

“The Harvard sponsors went on to propose a long-term study aimed at devising methods that could later be employed to control population. Punjab in India was chosen as the location,” says Mamdani’s book.

It records the population density of Punjab as 20 per cent higher than India’s and the density of Ludhiana, selected site, as the highest in Punjab and 75 per cent higher than the population density of India. Financed by Rockefeller Foundation and Indian Government, ‘the Khanna Study’ spanned from 1954 to 1960 with a follow-up in 1969, and covered seven villages with 8,700 people. The control arm had 12,000 people. After two years, birth rates in the test area fell by 13.2 per 1,000. Rates fell in the control area too by 11 per 1,000 for the same period.

On the study that cost $1 million, a Punjab villager told Mamdani, “They came from distant lands to be with us. Couldn’t we even do this much for them? Take a few tablets? They wanted no money for it. All they wanted was that we accept the tablets. We lost nothing and they must have got some promotion.”