India's Under Performance on Human Development Index

The UNDP’s Human Development Report, puts India far down on the list – at 134 out of a survey of 182
countries.

The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index used to rank countries by level of "human
development", which usually also implies whether a country is developed, developing, or underdeveloped.
Though the report is used as a measure to development, it is actually not a comprehensive measure of
human development – it doesn’t include indicators like gender or income inequality or less tangible
concepts like human rights and political freedom — Normally published annually since 1990, the index
goes beyond a nation’s GDP to measure the general well-being of people under a host of three
parameters of development: living a long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy), being educated
(measured by adult literacy and gross enrolment in education) and having a decent standard of living
(measured by purchasing power parity, income).

The Human Development Report 2009 (HDR), makes a surprising assertion – “being able to decide
where to live is a key element of human freedom”. But from many years migration of people across
borders and inside countries has been seen as a negative thing, caused by underdevelopment and
violence and as a source of trouble, poverty and joblessness. Almost all countries opposes entry of
immigrants, whether domestic or foreign, particularly when the migrants are poor, refugees or from a
different ethnic/ religious background. In India we witness this most clearly in the treatment and
representation of internal Bihari migrants or international “Bangladeshi aliens”. Most governments view
migration as an unwelcome event both for the migrant as well as for the communities involved.

The influential body like the United Nations has endorsed a report which foregrounds migrant rights by not
only demonstrating the net advantage of migration to both the migrants as well as host communities, but
also at a level of human right. Migration benefits in terms of better incomes and social benefits like health
and education for the migrants. Host communities generally benefit from the infusion of new workers and
skills while the immigrants’ home communities too often gain from the repatriation of money and ideas.

The HDR observes, “While the international community boasts an established institutional architecture for
governing trade and financial relations among countries, the governance of mobility has been well
characterised as a nonregime”, and adds that “...better progress might be made if the WTO [World Trade
Organisation] took a more inclusive and people-centred approach” towards the movement of people.
Given this larger global context, the HDR’s insistence on a positive correlation between migration and
development is surely a big step in the right direction.

According to press reports, the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia
said that India would allow unhindered movement of migrants, including unskilled workers, if the
developed world takes the first step. Similarly, on the matter of internal migration, whether it is in providing
basic services to the poor migrants or protecting them from chauvinist violence, the state’s record has
been rather poor for example in our own “Incredible Nation”, The financial capital of India, “Mumbai”
(sorry, not Bombay) is a glaring example of the “Sons of the soil”. The emigrants from the States of
UttarPradesh, Bihar, Orissa always live in perpetual fear of the “policy holders”, the “Marathi mannoos”.
About a year ago, the North Indian inhabitants were brutally attacked, robbed of their belongings, their
properties destroyed and forced them to flee to their States.

The ranking clearly shows India has slipped in comparative terms in ensuring a better quality of life for its
citizens as in the previous index, published for 2007 and 2008 together, it ranked 128, while the position
the year before was 126. India’s score has been pulled down by its slower progress in education and
health reforms compared with most nations. The nation’s government expenditure on health as a
percentage is only 3.4% in 2006 compared with 8.3% in Sri Lanka and 6.8% in Vietnam. Similarly, the
public expenditure on education as percentage of total government expenses is 10.7% over the years
2000 to 2007. Therefore, according to the report, life expectancy at birth, at 63.4 years, in India is worse
than Egypt, Lebanon or Albania.
“Overall, however, India has made steady progress on the Human Development Index (HDI). Its value
has gone up from 0.556 in 2000 to 0.612 in 2007,” said Patrice Coeur-Bizot, the resident representative of
UNDP in India.

Among the countries in the neighbourhood, China, Sri Lanka and Bhutan rank higher than India at 92,
102 and 132, respectively, while Pakistan at 141, Nepal at 144 and Bangladesh at 146 rank lower.

Norway continues to top the chart, while Australia, Iceland, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden,
France, Switzerland and Japan make up the top 10. The US is ranked 13, while Britain and Germany are
further down at 21 and 22. It is interesting that Australia (which has dominated the Indian news lately
because of racist attacks against Indians in the country) ranks second on the HDI, right after Norway.

Given India’s chronic inability to provide even the most basic services and rights to a majority of its
citizens even six decades after independence. As the Human Development Index (HDI) shows, India’s
unchanged position at 134 in a list of 182 countries is a scandal for a nation which has superpower
pretentions. Even though its actual HDI score has improved, its constant relative ranking indicates that it
may be doing worse than other countries in addressing poverty and deprivation.

Key Words: HDI and India, India's Performance on HDI, Human Development in India, India's poor rank
according to HDI Report, HDI Report, Human development Index on India, Human Development Report
and India, UN Report on Human Development, UN report on Indian Human Development

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