THE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX AND INDIA.

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite statistic of Life Expectancy, Education and Per Capita Incomes. This index is used for ranking the countries as against the traditional model of ranking them merely by Per Capita Incomes.  

The HDI was originally an idea of the Pakistani economist Mahbub Ul Haq who gave a call for developmental rather than pure economics. He produced the annual reports for the UNDP which indicated this new trend.

Haq, used the services of many developmental economists to produce the UNDP Reports and these included the Indians Meghnad Desai and Sudhir Anand apart form others. These economists worked in conjunction with Amartya Sen who supplied the underlying framework for the HDI. Amartya Sen was initially against the idea but later he went on to help develop the HDI.   

The HDI index released in 2014 ranked 187 countries on the basis of HDI.

In the HDI Norway stood number 1 in the world, while the USA was ranked at 5. The ranks of our neighboring countries and that of India are given below.

Country                                  Rank                                                   

Sri Lanka                                  73

China                                        91

Maldives                                 103

India                                        135

Bhutan                                     136

Bangladesh                             142

Nepal                                      145

Pakistan                                  146

Burma                                     150

Afghanistan                            169

India can take consolation that it is better off than Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Burma and Afghanistan but it is far behind Sri Lanka.

After being independent for so many years India could not raise the education levels and life expectancy rapidly enough and this speaks about the failure of our various Governments.

Our political parties are more intent on criticizing each other than on national development. Everything is conveniently segmented by the politicians so that a particular category is given promises. At one time they say, the employees would be benefited, at another time they say that the farmers would be benefited, at yet another time they say that a particular religion or a caste would be benefited.

They never say that they would help all sections of the people who are at a low level of development irrespective of what caste, or grouping, religion or region they belong to. (Modi did say that in meetings but no one even noticed it). In a country poor people who cannot fend for themselves have to be helped by the state be they of any origin or beginnings. They are Indians and are therefore entitled to the Government’s help and no categorization is needed for this, the only indicator being poverty.

Why have our political parties become so bankrupt in thinking? I have never seen any political party in the opposition genuinely praising the party in Government for some good steps taken. This holds good for all political parties. Is it that all the steps taken by the Governments are always faulty and absolutely nothing is good in them? I find that the parties are utterly selfish and they are a blot on democracy. The worrying thing is that they in fact reflect the thinking of our people whom I can only conclude are utterly selfish.

  

During the time of Nehru, there were MP’s who would challenge the party when they opposed the issue which the party supported. But such MP’s do not exist now. They are extremely eager to toe the party line and are ready to support even a murder by their own party men. With experience the working of Democracy should improve but in our case the opposite seems to have happened.

The favorite saying of politicians is “law would take its own course”. But who does the investigation? It is the police or other bodies which work under the politicians. Courts can only decide on the matter depending on the material placed before them. If the material is faulty they cannot deliver justice. And who collects the evidence but the investigative agencies? How would they go against those who they work under?

Coming to law who make the laws? It is the parliament itself. They have every right to amend the law when justice is delayed. Why has the parliament not legislated regarding the number of hearings in a case by amending the necessary laws? In most cases the witness would tend to forget with time the exact events that have happened at the time of the crime and he can easily be misled to give a wrong testimony just because of the time lag. People do not clearly remember what happened say 5 years ago.  

And why has it not legislated for stringent punishment to those who give wrong evidence in the courts thereby totally misleading the judges? There is a section 193 in the IPC for this, but I am yet to see a case where this section is imposed and punishment meted out. When our legal system is made so dependent on the investigative agencies for evidence, is it not the responsibility of the Government to bring in laws and strengthen the independence of the agencies?     

There is something seriously wrong about how laws are enforced in our country. It is not the laws but their enforcement that is the concern. Unless Governments rise above party and political considerations and strengthen the hands of law enforcement agencies it is unlikely that things would improve.