Chasing wrong priorities
While the world is focused on inequality-adjusted HDI, India is behind GDP rankings and $5 trillion economy
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (Literacy Rate, Gross Enrollment Ratio at different levels and Net Attendance Ratio), and per capita income indicators, which are used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. A country scores a higher HDI when the lifespan is higher, the education level is higher, and the gross national income GNI (PPP) per capita is higher. It is used to measure a country’s development by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)’s Human Development Report Office (HDRO).
The 2010 Human Development Report introduced an Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI). While the simple HDI remains useful, it stated that “the IHDI is the actual level of human development (accounting for inequality)”, and “the HDI can be viewed as an index of ‘potential’ human development (or the maximum IHDI that could be achieved if there were no inequality)”. The index does not take into account several factors, such as the net wealth per capita or the relative quality of goods in a country.
Development Approach
The index is based on the human development approach, often framed in terms of whether people are able to “be” and “do” desirable things in life. Examples include—Being: well-fed, sheltered, healthy; Doing: work, education, voting, participating in community life. The freedom of choice is central — someone choosing to be hungry (as during a religious fast) is quite different from someone who is hungry because they cannot afford to buy food, or because the country is in a famine.
The origins of the HDI are in the annual Human Development Reports produced by the UNDP’s HDRO. These were devised by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq in 1990, and had the explicit purpose “to shift the focus of development economics from national income accounting to people-centered policies”. Haq believed that a simple composite measure of human development was needed to convince the public, academics, and politicians that they can and should evaluate development not only by economic advances but also improvements in human well-being.
HDI 2019
The Human Development Report 2019 was released on December 9, 2019, and calculates HDI values based on data collected in 2018. India ranks 129 out of 189 countries. The HDI is ranked on a scale from 0 to 1.0, with 1.0 being the highest human development. It is broken down into four tiers: very high human development (0.8-1.0), high human development (0.7-0.79), medium human development (0.55-.70), and low human development (below 0.55).
Most countries that are “developed countries” have an HDI score of 0.8 or above. These countries have stable governments, widespread education and healthcare, high life expectancies, and growing, powerful economies.
The least developed countries (LDCs) have HDI scores in the low human development tiers with scores below 0.55. LDCs face unstable governments, widespread poverty, lack of access to healthcare and poor education. These countries also have low income and low life expectancies coupled with high birth rates. The HDI helps the UN determine which countries need assistance, specifically LDCs. The UN has held four conferences to assess LDCs and develop strategies to boost them.
Since being launched in 1990, the HDI is being released annually. The top nation on this list is Norway with a score of 0.953. Switzerland stands second with a score of 0.944 and Australia ranks third with a score of 0.939. The least developed country in the world with the lowest HDI is Niger, with an HDI of .354. Niger has widespread malnutrition and 44.1% of people live below poverty line. India has a score of .640 and is placed in the medium human development category.
India’s False Prestige
While the whole world is bothered about inequality-adjusted HDI, even not investing high stake in the per capita GDP, India is bothered about GDP ranking and $5 trillion economy. The per capita GDP of India is $6,284. The highest is Luxemberg with $1,12,875 and the US has $63,051(IMF. 2020 estimates). Even Bhutan and Sri Lanka have more per capita GDP than India. Now Bangladesh may overtake India. India needs to come out of this false prestige of being the 4th largest economy in the world, while its per capita GDP remains at 124th and its HDI at 129th.
The HDI even varies greatly amongst our States. While it is highest in Kerala – 0.757, it is 0.554 in Bihar and the lowest in UP – 0.596. UP and Bihar have remained at the bottom of the HDI despite being the first and second highest recipients of central tax devolutions for years, and added to that there are now the present NDA’s so-called special economic packages and ‘efficient’ governments. While UP and Bihar were entitled to get Rs 7,10,966 crore (18%) and Rs 3,82,529 crore (9.7%) respectively, Kerala got Rs 98,912 crore (2.5%) of central tax devolution from 2015-16 to 2019-20.
Strange Paradox
It is a paradox to see how States like Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana, which contribute very big to the central tax pool and get very less back as devolution (5.6%, 4.7% and 2.4% respectively), are in a better development and HDI trajectory. Even if it is for raising the HDI of backward areas as a national policy, there should be a mechanism of promoting and evaluating development to bring them on a par with other more developed States. It cannot be taken for granted and the gratis renewed without commensurate development every year. The special status States are more or less living at the cost of other States.
In India, the idea of development and its manifestation seems to be a different algorithm altogether from the rest of the world. Especially in States like UP and Bihar, which are the boiling caldrons of Indian politics and are important to the Central government with their more number of MPs. India needs to revamp, refocus and restructure its economic and human development paradigms based on the changes that are taking place around the world.
Trying to win elections with manipulations, running governments on haphazard and hollow development manifestos, taking the incognisant GDP growth as development, while the PCI and HDI are left to themselves, is a sure recipe for stagnation. Despite all the publicised development, India remains home to 364 million poor people (28%), out of a population of 1.3 billion.
(The author is a freelance journalist)
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