Sripati Chandrasekhar (22 November 1918, Rajahmundry - 14 June 2001, San Diego, California) was a well-known Indian demographer, economist, sociologist, and scholar who has published extensively on

demographics Demography () is the statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration. Demographic analysis examin ...

, especially related to India. Chandrasekhar attended Vorhees High School in Vellore India which was a Protestant Christian school. Later, he attended Madras Presidency College, from where he graduated with a B.A. and M.A. in economics. In 1944, he earned a Ph.D. in Sociology from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

. Sripati married Ann Downes, an American

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

from New Jersey, in a wedding officiated by protestant unitarian John Haynes Holmes in 1947. In April 1964, Chandrasekhar was elected to the upper house of the Indian parliament. He was appointed Minister of Health and

Family Planning Family planning is the consideration of the number of children a person wishes to have, including the choice to have no children, and the age at which they wish to have them. Things that may play a role on family planning decisions include marit ...

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Indira Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (Given name, ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and stateswoman who served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India from 1966 to 1977 and again from 1980 un ...

in 1967. Chandresekhar was deeply concerned by the growing Indian population, and advocated a variety of

population control Population control is the practice of artificially maintaining the size of any population. It simply refers to the act of limiting the size of an animal population so that it remains manageable, as opposed to the act of protecting a species from ...

measures such as sterilization,

abortion Abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. Abortions that occur without intervention are known as miscarriages or "spontaneous abortions", and occur in roughly 30–40% of all pregnan ...

, and

abstinence Abstinence is the practice of self-enforced restraint from indulging in bodily activities that are widely experienced as giving pleasure. Most frequently, the term refers to sexual abstinence, but it can also mean abstinence from alcohol (drug), ...

. He faced criticism from traditional sectors of society, for example when he advocated that Indians begin eating

beef Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle (''Bos taurus''). Beef can be prepared in various ways; Cut of beef, cuts are often used for steak, which can be cooked to varying degrees of doneness, while trimmings are often Ground beef, grou ...

, in contravention of

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

tradition. He also traveled through communist China, studying its population and social and economic trends.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chandrasekhar, Sripati 1918 births 2001 deaths Indian demographers Rajya Sabha members from Tamil Nadu 20th-century Indian mathematicians New York University Graduate School of Arts and Science alumni Indian expatriate academics in the United States