By Santosh Kumar Mohapatra
Everyone, including economists, bankers, businesses, investors and policy-makers, seems to be infatuated by single or double-digit GDP growth. But GDP inventor Simon Kuznets had indicated that the welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from the measurement of national income.
It is well-known that India is no longer a peaceful country. Indians neither enjoy happiness nor peace in an era of globalisation that has triggered consumerism wherein the proclivity to accumulate wealth gets precedence over sacrifice, social service and meaningful life. India is abysmally placed in international indices such as social progress index, global peace index and global happiness index.
As India’s economic growth rate surges ahead of China and other developing countries, international bodies like the UN have questioned what the country is doing to alleviate the poverty of 300 million Indians. Some indices that measure a nation’s social and environmental progress rather than its GDP, suggest an answer: Not enough.
India ranked 101 among 133 countries for the second consecutive year, trailing behind neighbour China (92nd), Nepal (98th) and Bangladesh (100th) in the Social Progress Index 2015 published by the Social Progress Imperative, a US-based outfit which argues that GDP does not represent actual growth of a nation.
This index is based on writings of Amartya Sen, Douglass North and Joseph Stiglitz. It is an aggregate index of 54 social and environmental indicators that capture three dimensions of social progress: Basic human needs, foundations of well-being and opportunity. The index measures social progress using outcomes of success and not how much effort a country makes. The report indicates India has scope for improvement. The country fared badly in the foundations of well-being category, ranking 113 of the 133 countries surveyed. Expressing concern over deteriorating air quality underlined by the index India scored 42.30 out of 100 in the ecosystem sustainability sub-category. However, the country fared well in basic education coming in at 94th place.
The country’s performance in tolerance and inclusion, however, was at its worst. It came 128th in tolerance and inclusion with a score of 28.22. It ranked the same in religious tolerance as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. These numbers resonate with a growing concern for the rise of Hindu nationalism in the country.
India also received consistently low grades in the provision of basic needs such as nutrition and healthcare, water and sanitation, personal safety and shelter. Future performance in the ranking could be a way to measure how the recent budget and the government’s plans help improve sanitation and shelter.
The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness published by Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).The first report was published in 2012, the second in 2013 and the third April 23, 2015. The reports review the state of happiness in the world today and show how the new science of happiness explains personal and national variations in happiness. It does not evaluate happiness on the basis of individual satisfaction and wealth, but also broad contentment: social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, perception of graft and dystopia.
The World Happiness Report 2015 suggests happiness helps us live longer and healthier for a productive life. Already rated an unhappy place in 2014 with a ranking of 111, India has dropped six places to 117 out of 158 countries ranked in the 2015 list, which took into account data from 2012-2014. It was dominated by wealthy Nordic countries.
The global peace index (GPI) is the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace and developed in consultation with an international panel of peace from peace institutes and think-tanks with data collected and collated by the economist intelligence unit. It evaluates ongoing domestic and international conflict, safety and security in society and militarisation by taking into account 23 indicators.
India ranked 143 out of 162 nations in its GPI 2015 prepared by the Institute for Economics and Peace. This indicates India has seen no change in peace since 2014. The nation slid by six per cent since the index was introduced due to “deterioration in indicators measuring deaths from conflict, political terror and perceptions of criminality”. Maoist movement is another threat to our internal security and sporadic conflict with neighbours external security. “The economic impact of containing and dealing with the consequences of India’s levels of violence was estimated to cost $341.7 billion in 2014, equivalent to 4.7 per cent of GDP, or $273 per person. In 2013, it was $177 billion in 2013, equivalent to 3.6 per cent of India’s GDP or $145 per person.”
India has been ranked 100 out of 124 countries on the global Human Capital Index, which measures countries on development and deployment of human capital. Compiled by the World Economic Forum on the basis of 46 indicators about development and deployment of human capital ‘‘focusing on education, skills and employment”, it aims to understand whether countries are wasting or leveraging their human potential. The report says although educational attainment has improved considerably, India’s youth literacy rate is only 90 per cent, far behind those in the emerging economies.
The rising inequality is evident from the fact that happiness, peace and social progress are on decline whereas the number of millionaires is increasing. A 15 per cent jump in the number of ultra high net worth households (UHNW) in the past one year was reported in the Boston Consulting Group’s 15th annual report on global wealth management industry. According to the report India has the fourth highest number of UHNW households in the world. India currently has 982 UHNW households with wealth over $100 million.
Hence, it is imperative that instead of being engrossed with GDP growth, government should reduce inequality and accord priority to peace, happiness, social progress. The policies should not merely enhance growth but also augment qualitative improvement of life of its citizens. This requires massive generation of resources by taxing the rich, wealthy and corporates and spending such resources on health, education, housing, poverty alleviation and employment generation. The rich should develop an attitude of paying more to the exchequer for the betterment of their own brethren: Otherwise, they may be victims of looming social mayhem.
The author is an Orissa-based financial columnist
