India still 127th in UN development index, but gets praise for secular tradition
Kabir Swarup
| India still 127th in UN development index, but gets praise for secular tradition |
|
India has been lauded as an example of progress in diversity, in this year's Human Development Report brought out by the UNDP. But, the report cautions, recent communal violence raises serious concerns about prospects for social harmony and threatens to undermine the country's earlier achievements |
|
While India occupies the same spot it did last year -- 127 -- in the UN's development ratings for 2004, it has been commended in the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP's) report for its initiatives in religious tolerance, legal pluralism and socio-economic policies, including minority reservation. The UNDP's Human Development Report 2004, 'Cultural Liberty In Today's Diverse World', has however warned that the rise of "Hindu groups" that seek to impose a singular religion in the country poses a threat to social harmony. Ranking low, at 127, in the list of 177 countries in the HDI (Human Development Index), India figures between Namibia and Botswana and much lower than smaller countries such as Gabon, Tonga, Antigua and Barbuda and Estonia. However, whilst remaining in the medium human development category, India has seen a marginal improvement in its development score from 0.579 last year to 0.595, thanks largely to better performances in two parameters, life expectancy at birth and adult literacy. But India's ranking has stayed static due to a decline in GDP per capita in purchasing power parity (PPP) because of drought, though there has been an improvement in the literacy rate. The HDI is measured in terms of life expectancy at birth, adult literacy rate, gross enrolment ratio in schools and per capita income. The life expectancy ratio improved to 63.7 in 2002 from 63.3 in 2001, while the adult literacy rate went up to 61.3 from 58 during the previous year. On the Human Poverty Index, India ranks 48th among 95 developing nations and 103 overall in the Gender-related Development Index, with a value of 0.572. Within South Asia, Pakistan is the worst performer according to the index, slipping into the low development category from the medium development one which includes India and Sri Lanka. The annual development report, which argues that cultural freedom and protection of cultural diversity are essential in preventing conflict, says: "Although India is culturally diverse, comparative surveys of long-standing democracies including India show that it has been very cohesive, despite its diversity." "But modern India is facing a grave challenge to its constitutional commitment to multiple and complementary identities with the rise of groups that seek to impose a singular Hindu identity on the country," it warned. "These threats undermine the sense of inclusion and violate the rights of minorities in India today." "Recent communal violence raises serious concerns for the prospects for social harmony and threatens to undermine the country's earlier achievements." Historically, India's Constitution recognised and enabled the polity to hold together despite enormous regional, linguistic and cultural diversity. "As is evident from India's performance on indicators of identification, trust and support, its citizens are deeply committed to the country and to democracy despite its diversity and highly stratified society. Their performance is impressive when compared with that of other wealthier democracies," the report notes, whilst warning that the challenge was in reinvigorating India's commitment to practices of pluralism, institutional accommodation and conflict-resolution through democratic means. Referring to the controversy over the need to implement a uniform civil code, the report suggests that what is needed is an internal reform of all customary laws, upholding gender equality rather than imposing identical gender-biased, prejudicial laws across all communities. This year, the global development report has measured 175 UN member states, as well as Hong Kong and the occupied Palestinian territories, using statistics from 2002. The UNDP says it did not have enough accurate or recent data to measure 16 states, including Afghanistan, Iraq, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Liberia, Serbia and Montenegro, and Somalia. Norway tops the global rankings again this year: its inhabitants have a life expectancy of 79 years, a school enrolment ratio of 98%, a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of $36,000. Sweden, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Iceland, the United States, Japan and Ireland complete the top 10. In all, 55 nations are classed as having high human development. But the countries at the bottom of the HDI rankings, classed as having low human development and dominated by sub-Saharan Africa, are slipping further behind. In over a dozen countries in the region, and seven other nations, AIDS has led to a drop in life expectancy to 40 years and less. Sierra Leone is in last place for the seventh consecutive year as it attempts to recover from a brutal and long-running civil war. Other countries among the bottom 10 are Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Burundi, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Ethiopia, the CAR and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The world's newest nation, Timor-Leste, is the worst off in Asia ranking 158th of the 177 countries and territories measured. The report also contains indices on human poverty and gender equality and economic inequality to help international policy-makers better target their programmes. Source: www.undp.org, July 15, 2004 |