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The Population Foundation of India urges states to repeal the two-child norm, highlighting its role in turning children into liabilities and leading to tragic incidents like the recent case in Maharashtra.
The policy, which affects political eligibility, disproportionately harms women and fails to achieve demographic goals, emphasizing the need for empowerment over coercion.
The Population Foundation of India (PFI), a national civil society organisation which promotes and advocates effective formulation and implementation of gender sensitive population, health and development strategies and policies, has called for the repeal of the two-child norm in the aftermath of a shocking incident in Maharashtra that has made national headlines.
A young girl in the state was killed by her father, allegedly so he could run for local panchayat elections in accordance with the state’s two-child rule.
“Here ambition and a broken system collided violently and a child paid the price. This act cannot be written off as a singular instance of cruelty. It is the terrible result of a legislative framework that equates political rights with reproductive choices and makes children, especially daughters, seem like liabilities,” the PFI said in a statement on February 4, 2026.
“When the state creates incentives that punish people for having more than a prescribed number of children, it normalises fear, coercion and control within families. In such contexts, violence is not an aberration; it is an outcome shaped by law and policy, with girls often paying the highest price,” the statement continued.
At least eleven states introduced a two-child norm, almost always by disqualifying candidates from panchayat elections: Rajasthan (1992), Odisha (1993), Haryana (1994), Andhra Pradesh (1994), Himachal Pradesh (2000), Madhya Pradesh (2000), Chhattisgarh (2000), Uttarakhand (2002), Maharashtra (2003), Gujarat (2005), and Assam (2017).
Several states—including Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana—later repealed the law after recognising the social damage it caused.
“The pattern itself reveals the problem,” said Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director, PFI. “These restrictions apply only at the lowest level of political participation, never to MLAs or Members of Parliament. If the two-child norm were genuinely about responsible citizenship or population stabilisation, it would apply uniformly. It does not, because it is designed to control the lives of the rural poor while leaving elites untouched.”
“India does not have a two-child norm at the national level, and that reflects both constitutional values and demographic reality,” said Muttreja. “We strongly urge the states that continue to retain the two-child norm to repeal it immediately. No democratic system should link political participation to the number of children a person has.”
According to PFI, there is strong empirical evidence that the two-child norm causes serious harm without delivering demographic benefits.
It cited a detailed study by former IAS officer Nirmala Buch, which examined the impact of the policy across five Indian states, documented increases in unsafe and sex-selective abortions, men divorcing their wives (sometimes on paper) to remain eligible for elections, and children being abandoned or given up for adoption.
“Crucially, the study found no sustained reduction in fertility, showing that the policy fails even on its stated objective. So, there’s absolutely no rationale for a two-child norm,” said PFI.
It added that the Maharashtra case is made even more concerning by the demographic background. About 20 years ago, the state’s fertility reached replacement level. According to National Family Health Survey-5 data, at 1.7, the state’s fertility is already significantly below 2.1.
The state is thus dealing with ageing and slowing population growth rather than a population explosion. Thus, coercive population policies have no demographic basis, the statement noted.
It added that women bear a disproportionate amount of the burden of these policies. “The unmet need for family planning remains high. Male participation in contraception is still very low in India, where female sterilisation accounts for nearly two-thirds of modern contraceptive use. Daughters are seen as risks, women are pressured to have unsafe abortions, and violence is used to enforce adherence to state policy when political eligibility is linked to family size.”
“Not only the individual father, but we must also hold accountable the states that uphold or justify two-child norms in spite of overwhelming evidence of harm are also accountable,” Muttreja said. Laws influence behaviour, and violence is a result of laws that penalise families for their reproductive choices rather than an exception.
Instead of using coercion, states that achieved low fertility did so through gender equality, women’s employment, girls’ education, and access to voluntary family planning.
“The lesson is clear: empowering women, not policing people, is the key to population stabilisation. The loss of Prachi is hugely unacceptable and tragic, but a wake-up call for policies to be reformed,” the statement concluded.