The Hindu Business Line : Human Development Report: The good news and bad news

UNDP's Human Development Report has praised many aspects of the Indian culture and resilience while simultaneously painting a pathetic picture of the economic state of the nation. But one would necessarily have to be selective about the information given in the lengthy report that highlights the contrasts and contradictions of Indian society, says Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.

TO DESCRIBE India as a country of amazing contrasts has become a bit of a cliché. Yet, the same nation that is admired for its diversity, plurality, tolerance and adherence to the highest norms of democracy is also a land of extreme poverty, deprivation and inequality, not to mention oppressive social structures. The latest Human Development Report (HDR) of the United Nations Development Programme released on July 15 is a case in point. The HDR has praised many aspects of Indian culture — the theme of the report is "cultural liberty in today's diverse world" — - while simultaneously painting a pretty pathetic picture of the economic state of the nation.

The bad news first

Since the HDR is 285 pages long, roughly half of which comprises detailed tables and charts, one would necessarily have to be selective about the information chosen to highlight the contrasts and contradictions that are evident in Indian society. Let us start with the bad news first. Over the last two reports, India's ranking among 177 countries in terms of its Human Development Index (HDI) has remained unchanged at 127. The criteria used to devise the index include life expectancy at birth, adult literacy, school enrolment and per capita gross domestic product. Even among 95 developing countries, India is ranked 48 in terms of its human and income poverty index.

A glance at a few randomly-chosen countries (with their HDI ranks) that have a superior human development ranking in comparison with India should serve as an eye-opener — Chile (43), Uruguay (46), Cuba (52), Mexico (53), Russia (57), Libya (58), Tonga (63), Albania (65), Brazil (72), Columbia (73), Thailand (76), Lebanon (80), Peru (85), Turkmenistan (86), Turkey (88), Tunisia (92), China (94), Sri Lanka (96), Ecuador (100), Iran (101), Occupied Palestinian Territories (102), Algeria (108), Indonesia (111), Vietnam (112), Mongolia (117), Nicaragua (118), South Africa (119), Egypt (120), Morocco (125) and Namibia (126). Many Indians who would derogatorily look down on some of these countries should think twice, since the human development track record of all these nations is superior to that of ours.

Pace of human development

At the same time, one is not for a moment arguing that there has been no progress made in India. It could be contended that the pace of progress has not been fast enough and few would disagree with the view that much remains to be done to accelerate the pace of human development in the country.

During the decade of the 1990s, the percentage of the Indian population that had "sustainable access to improved sanitation" improved significantly from 16 per cent in 1990 to 28 per cent in 2000, while the proportion of people with sustainable access to an improved water source went up from 68 per cent to 84 per cent, according to the HDR. The country's adult literacy rate rose from just under half in 1990, that is, 49.3 per cent to 61.3 per cent in 2002.

Life expectancy at birth has gone up from 50.3 in the first half of the 1970s to around 64 per cent at present. The percentage of people in the country who were undernourished came down from roughly 25 per cent in the early-1990s to 21 per cent towards the end of the decade. However, the magnitude of the problem becomes evident when one considers the proportion of children below the age of five who are underweight; this figure is close to half, to be precise 47 per cent.

As far as the population below the poverty line is concerned, between 1990 and 2002, over one-third or nearly 35 per cent of Indians subsisted on less than one dollar a day while almost 80 per cent lived with income of less than $2 per day.

If one looks at statistics of inequality, in 1999-2000, the share of the richest one-tenth of the country's population in total consumption was 27.4 per cent while the comparable proportion for the poorest 10 per cent of the population was under 4 per cent.

Praise in a different context

Yet, the UNDP's HDR for 2004 has, in a different context, lavished praise on India. The country "has managed its diverse cultures with pluralistic policies and 15 official languages — and made remarkable progress in economic growth and in health and education," the report states while debunking the myth that cultural diversity is an obstacle to development. The second page of the main report contains the following sentence: "Sectarian violence killed thousands of Muslims and drove thousands more from their homes in Gujarat and elsewhere in India, a champion of cultural accommodation".

Despite its long secular tradition, the country has experienced considerable communal violence, with rising intensity; the report points out that more than one-third (36.2 per cent) of the casualties due to communal violence since 1954 took place between 1990 and 2002. While pointing out that India has been very cohesive despite its diversity, the report observes that "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 states that these "threats undermine the sense of inclusion and violate the rights of minorities in India today" and adds that recent communal violence "raises serious concerns for the prospects for social harmony" that would "undermine the country's earlier achievements".

The HDR immediately hastens to point out that these "achievements have been considerable". The design of the Indian Constitution "recognised and responded to distinct group claims and enabled the polity to hold together despite enormous regional, linguistic and cultural diversity". The challenge lies in "reinvigorating" the country's "commitment to practices of pluralism, institutional accommodation and conflict resolution through democratic means", the report says. It points out that India's performance "is particularly impressive when compared with that of other long-standing — and wealthier — democracies".

The report also mentions that India and Canada are two countries which have demonstrated that a proportional representation system in the polity "does not guarantee successful accommodation, and a winner-takes-all system can sometimes be compatible with multinational and multilingual federations".

Both countries use other measures — including affirmative action programmes that include reservation of government jobs for those belonging to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other backward classes — to ensure political representation to various groups.

What has been emphasised is the fact that India has one of the longest histories of any country in implementing affirmative action policies. Reservations currently cover nearly two-thirds of the India population.

The OBCs, the largest and most heterogeneous group, have been able to greatly increase their representation in legislatures "through normal processes of competitive politics". The report explains how reservations have changed the nature and composition of the Indian middle-class.

A new political class

The beneficiaries of reservation currently comprise a "new political class" that has the Congress party's monopoly on power. There is also an entire box in the HDR that deals with the ongoing debate over a Uniform Civil Code. It mentions that the "arguments for women's rights and principles of equality get entangled with concerns for minority rights and cultural recognition".

It may be tempting for Indians to remember only those portions in the HDR that favour the country while ignoring the sections that do not. But that would reveal an ostrich-like approach to the multi-faceted problems that continue to plague the world's largest democracy and second most populous nation-state.

(The author is Director, School of Convergence, New Delhi. He can be reached at paranjoy@yahoo.com.)