 You are clear for launch, and with that shut down your visors, O2 on and prepare for ignition to O2. You can copy that and, um... Hey guys, Mr. Ruchoff here. So far in this unit, we looked at the physical geography of South Asia, and we looked at the factors that helped shape the culture of South Asia. In this lesson, we're going to look at the people of South Asia today. We're going to describe its current demographics, their government, their economies, and we're going to take a peek at their culture. So if we're going to talk about the people, then we're going to begin looking at the demographics or the numbers that describe the people of South Asia. And the first number we see is 1.6 billion. That is the combined population of South Asia, and let me put it another way. That is 20% of the world's population. Now the people of South Asia and India can largely be divided into two major groups. We have the Aryans, which are who are found largely in the northern portion of South Asia, and we have the Dravidians in the south. Now we talked about the Aryans in our last lesson. These are the people who migrated from the north of the Caucasus Mountains and came to South Asia around 1500 BC. However, the Dravidians were in South Asia well before the Aryans arrived. It is believed that their descendants first began to arrive in South Asia over 10,000 years ago. But it would be simplistic to think of South Asia as just having but two ethnicities. In reality, there are over 2,000 ethnic groups that are in South Asia. And this is largely due to the trade routes, such as the Silk Road, that cause people throughout Asia to cross through and settle in South Asia. Now with so many different ethnic groups, it is no wonder that South Asia has thousands of different languages, and they're grouped into two major language families. In the north we have the Indo-Aryan language family, and in the south, you guessed it, we have the Dravidian language family. Now India itself has 22 languages listed in its constitution, and that doesn't include English. This is despite India with its 125 million people who speak English, being the second largest English-speaking country in the world. But English isn't the most spoken language in India, it's a language known as Hindi. And about 41% of the Indian people speak Hindi, which is about 4 times the number that speaks English. And the official language in Pakistan is Urdu. But it isn't the number of different languages that is the biggest problem in South Asia, it's the number of people, period. Overpopulation is India's biggest problem today. South Asia has three of the ten most populated countries in the world. India is right after China with 1.3 billion people, and then Bangladesh and Pakistan are also in the top ten. Bangladesh, however, tops the list as the world's most densely populated country with a population density of 2900. Let me try to illustrate what this really means. Let's say this screen is one square mile in the United States with each dick figure representing about ten people. So, lots of room, pretty comfortable, right? Well, here's that same square mile in Bangladesh. There's no more space, so as you have all the people are matched up with each other, it is awfully crowded. This is what 2900 people per square mile looks like. Now, with so many people, it's easy to understand why there are multiple super cities. A super city is one that has more than ten million people. India has three, and Bangladesh and Pakistan both have a super city. Again, to put it in perspective, the United States is the third most populated country in the world. How many do we have? Zero. New York City is our largest city and it only has eight and a half million people. So South Asia has bunches of people. Why is that a problem? Well, think of this problem as being a vicious cycle to poverty. First of all, governments try to provide infrastructure and services to its citizens, including roads, hospitals, fire, police, and schools. If the population grows too fast, more citizens are left without those services. This becomes really problematic, especially as you start looking at education and literacy. It leads to more poverty, which needs the government to support, which is really problematic because the government is already strained and it basically feeds on itself. So why does South Asia have so many people? Well, it starts with children, and South Asia has lots of children. The birth rate in South Asia is over 19 births per 1000 population. Pakistan's number is 28. In contrast, the United States has a birth rate of just under 12. So why are there so many kids? Historically, there are three major reasons. First of all, children can be a source of income. For example, in 2017, nearly 40% of all children between 5 and 14 years of old in Nepal were working outside of the home to support their family. So you have more children, you have more sources of income into the family. Now second, due to the lack of sufficient social programs, one of the advantages of having multiple children is that the more children you have, the more opportunity you have to have someone be able to take care of you. And last, women in South Asia tend to get married earlier than other regions of the world. In India, a woman is on average first marries about the age 22. But that amount goes all the way down to 16 in Bangladesh. In contrast, women in the United States marry at about 27. And usually the earlier you get married, the earlier you start making kids. So what does the population pyramids of these countries look like? Well, let's first look at Pakistan, which is the sixth most populated country. It is our textbook example of a triangle or a Christmas tree population pyramid of a developing country with a high birth rate. But let's look at India, and we see something that's interesting. If we look at the population older than 30 years old, then India also looks like our Christmas tree population pyramid. But if you start looking at the population under 30 years old, we start to see the graph begins to even out, even to decrease. And that's not by accident. In the 1970s and 1980s, India and other South Asian countries began having their governments established policies to help persuade people to have smaller families. India even had a controversial policy in the 1970s and voluntarily sterilizing more than 8 million people. Today, the reduction of poverty, better education opportunities, and growing urbanization has continued to reduce birth rates. But the population of the region continues to increase despite the slowing of the birth rates. This is largely due to the fact that countries such as India have become more developed. Therefore, they've developed better infrastructure such as more healthcare opportunities, which means that people are living longer. So the region still has a problem with overpopulation. So we've already talked about the government policies. What type of governments do these countries have? Well, India today is the largest democracy in the world. Their style of government is a blend of the British parliamentary system and the American idea of federalism, which separates the responsibilities of a national central government and the role of their states. And this is all laid out in a constitutional republic. Now, unfortunately, India's democracy has not always been fully democratic. For example, the British treated the Indians as second class citizens. And the caste system meant that the Dalits and the Untouchables were treated unfairly by other Indians. And although the caste system was outlawed in 1947, India still struggles with discrimination between these different castes. But India isn't the only democracy. Pakistan and Bangladesh also have democratic parliamentary republics. Although Pakistan has a checkered past of military commanders taking over the country from time to time. The Maldives is also a parliamentary democracy. Although to be a citizen in vote, they have to be a Sunni Muslim. The other island nation Sri Lanka officially is a socialist republic. However, corruption, fistfights on the floor of parliament, and even an attempt by the president to dissolve the legislature have led to many observers to classify the country as a failed democracy. Our two countries, Nessleton de Himalayas, Bhutan and Nepal, are the most recent countries to move to democracy. Nepal had a monarchy for over 240 years. And after a decade of civil war, it decided to become a democracy in 2006. And a new constitution was approved in 2008 that established for the country's government to be a federal parliamentary republic. Although it still struggles with violations of free speech and corruption. Bhutan was ruled by an absolute monarchy. However, it has slowly transitioned to a constitutional monarchy. And in 2008, it had its first democratically elected elections for their members of parliament. This move towards democracy is not the only chance these countries had. Some of these countries have had changes their economic systems. Notably India. Until 1991, India's government carried out socialist economic policies with the state interfering with businesses and having strict regulation. It also practiced protection of policies that reduce foreign investment. However, since 1991, it has slowly moved to a free market economy and has opened up its economy to foreign trade and foreign investment. Now India's move from socialism to capitalism has had a huge impact on the country. It is estimated that in this transition by 2013, more than 170 million people have been removed from poverty. They reduced the amount of people in extreme poverty by over 25%. And even its life expectancy over the average Indian has actually increased by more than 10 years. Now if we go back to India's population pyramid, its shape is what we call a newly industrialized country. It is a country that has not quite achieved the status of being a developed country like those in the United States or Europe, but is well on its way. This development has led India as well as other countries such as Pakistan, the Maldives and Sri Lanka develop more into a tertiary or a service-related economy. However, not all South Asian countries have made this shift. Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, these economies have still remained focused on agriculture and primary economic activities. Now one of the reasons that India's economy has been able to cash in on its free market economy is because of the part it plays in outsourcing. Outsourcing is when a country sends work from its country to be done by workers in another country. American companies send work to India because it's cheaper to pay Indian workers than American workers. This combination of history, demographics and government policies shaped the lives of the people of South Asia today. While millions of people have been left out of poverty in India, South Asia still finds itself as the second poorest region in the world after sub-Saharan Africa. The Maldives has the highest GDP per capita at just over $10,000 per person, while Nepal is the poorest with a GDP of just less than $1,000. In 2005, 40% of the people in South Asia lived on less than $1.25 a day. This has improved in the last two decades, but still today, 48% of the world's poor are found in South Asia. While India also has made great strides in reducing poverty, still 22% of its population is under the poverty line. A contributing factor of so many people in South Asia being poor and in poverty is due to the fact that two-thirds of the people in South Asia are farmers and a large number of them still practice subsistence agriculture. The poverty in Asia overwhelms some governments and poor sanitation and poor health education negatively impacts the health of their population. Beyond health care, people suffer from the lack of clean water, pollution, poor sanitation and malnutrition. In fact, three of every 10 South Asian children are malnourished, which makes it more difficult for them to be able to fight off disease. And while development has lowered the number of poor in the region, the cost has been more pollution. Remember, the Ganges River is the sixth most populated river in the world. South Asia also now has more cars running around in their cities, which adds to pollution to that of the factories and combined, we actually find clouds of spog over cities, which actually leads to further health problems. Now, despite more development, schools are struggling to keep up with the population. While the small nation of the Maldives has nearly universal adult literacy, in India a quarter of all adults cannot read and write and that number jumps to 40% in Pakistan. The situation becomes even worse when you move out of the cities into the rural areas or when you compare girls and boys. South Asia has the highest gender gap of literacy of any region in the world. Male literacy rates are a full 17% higher than women. Now, why does South Asia struggle with education? Well, it comes to money. There's not enough to go around. India spends about $109 for every student in their country. By contrast, the United States spends nearly $13,000. And as difficult of a situation South Asia might be, it would have been worse if it was not for the Green Revolution. This is the third of the three agriculture revolutions in history. The Green Revolution occurred between the 1960s and 1980s when bioengineering gave the world incredible developments in genetic modifications and farming techniques. At the time, the Green Revolution occurred, South Asia was finding itself unable to feed its population. But because of the Green Revolution, not only could India now feed its people, it actually is an exporter of grains such as wheat. Of course, this had the effect of introducing more pollution from pesticides and fertilizer, and the price of seed and fertilizer actually increased due to these high-tech innovations. This became problematic for South Asia's subsistence farmers as they often didn't have the money to pay for these new seeds and fertilizers. Now, in South Asia, if the people are not rich in gold, they are rich in culture. In South Asian countries such as India, their culture today is a unique blend of modern and traditional values and beliefs. Marriage and family are the center of life in India, but marriages are still largely male-dominated and divorce is rare. In India, we also find young people entering into arranged marriages. This is when they allow their parents to be able to play matchmaker and pick a future spouse for them. However, as more and more people are moving to the cities, more affluent Indians are moving away from this custom. In areas with high poverty rates in South Asia, we also find extended families all living under the same roof. Now, music is another area where we see new and old mixing together. While India's young people may listen to the same type of pop music that you might find in the United States, Indian music still features traditional instruments such as the sitar and the tablet. And like music, clothing in India culture has the same blend of traditional and modern. Women throughout South Asia will still wear the saree, which is a cloth draped garment that is often brightly colored and may get a silk. But right next to the women wearing a saree, you might find others wearing blue jeans. As we discussed in our last lesson, many different cultures have influenced life in South Asia. And architecture is another example of how cultures have moved and fused into India and converged with other cultures. The Taj Mahal is a great example of this, where we can see the influences of Hinduism, Persian and Buddhist, and as well as Islamic architecture, it will all win one structure. And then there is food. When you think about food, many people think of curries, but it's much more than that. The common cuisine is based upon rice, beans and flatbreads. And many South Asians are visitarians, largely due to religious limitations. Islam forbids the eating of pork as the Quran calls it done clean. Many Hindus do not eat beef because to them they see it as a symbol of a motherly giving animal and is considered as another member of the family. Interestingly, this is probably a more recent cultural prohibition since the 19th century than religious, as there are many references to Hindus, even the Brahmins of the highest caste, eating beef in history. Then there are the movies. India produces more movies each year than any other country. The base of the Indian film industry is found in Mumbai, which used to be named Bombay. This is why the nickname for their film industry is nicknamed Bollywood. And then there are the South Asian sports, which are heavily influenced by the British. These sports are field hockey and cricket. So now you should have a better understanding of life in South Asia. And as always, keep on learning.