Fixing India's global image

In the last one year, India has slipped on more than a dozen global indices leading the government to look for ways to improve its international rankings

International criticism of India as a ‘flawed democracy’ and its secular slide on several other global indices has clearly cut to the bone leading the government to look for ways to improve its international rankings.

The Union Law Ministry has reportedly been charged with moving India up the Democracy Index. The Union Home Ministry has been asked to monitor the parameters for Global Terrorism Index, Global Peace Index, Safe Cities Index and the Global Climate Risk Index. Similarly, the Ministry of Women and Child Development has been assigned the Global Gender Gap Index, Global Inequality Index and Global Hunger Index, and so on. According to the Niti Ayog “29 global indices published by 19 international agencies are assigned to 18 nodal ministries and departments of the Government of India.”

In the last one year, India has slipped on more than a dozen global indices. In the Global Hunger Index, India has slipped below Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The Spectator Index has ranked India as the fifth most dangerous country for women and India is at 133 out of 167 countries in Georgetown University’s Women, Peace and Security Index. A Thomson Reuters Foundation Survey declared India as the world’s most dangerous place for women, ahead of Afghanistan and Syria.

India also slipped 29 places in the Global Economic Freedom Index. Similarly, India has slipped 7 places in the World Happiness Report, 10 places in the Global Competitiveness Index, 5 places in the Global Peace Index and 28 places in the Gender Gap Index. The Swedish agency V-Dem has reclassified India from an “electoral democracy” to an “electoral autocracy.”

But it is unclear whether the government wants to fix basic flaws or merely its own image. Many of the systemic problems criticised internationally arise from the particular national and world-view of the ruling party. Therefore, the present exercise is unlikely to go beyond an image-repackaging operation after it has “cracked the code” of international indices.

There is already a past pattern of the government fixing data to improve its image. It was accused by economists and social scientists of manipulating economic data when it changed the base year for calculation of GDP from 2004-5 to 2011-12. By a simple sleight of hand It was able to show a 6.9 % growth rate for 2013-14, higher than China’s for the same period. Data was also manipulated to claim that the economy grew by 8.2% in 2017-18, the year of demonetisation.

The government has also been accused of resorting to off-budget financing to show lower budget deficit numbers and of putting pressure on the National Statistical Commission to reclassify its data on unemployment as a ‘draft’, causing its chief to resign in protest. Similarly, attempts have been made to suppress unemployment data collected by the labour ministry and to package rising numbers under Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation due to the formalisation of jobs as new employment creation.

By discontinuing recording of farmers’ suicides by the National Crime Records Bureau from 2015, the government has been able to escape accountability for agrarian distress. India can be overnight shown as safe for women if the same logic is extended to not recording crimes against women. Already, official data from Uttar Pradesh showcases a drop in crimes against women while independent studies accuse the state police of refusing to register such cases.

Will efforts to burnish the country’s international image follow the  same heavy-handed process of massaging data to fit the parameters? Failing that, one can produce one’s own narratives and question the methodology of compiling global indices.

Thus the claim that India was the most dangerous place for women, was countered by domestic narratives citing the National Health Family Survey that sexual violence had declined. When criticised for the slide down the Global Hunger Index, it was claimed that comparison with previous years was invalid because of changes in methodology.

Reports suggest that the Ministry of External Affairs is mulling a “World Democracy Report” as well as a “Global Press Freedom Index” to be prepared by an ‘independent’ Indian think-tank. This was apparently in response to a letter written by A Surya Prakash, chairman of Prasar Bharati, urging the prime minister that “we must define democracy and judge other nations and not the other way round.” So India may soon publish its own global rankings, despite External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar condemning the “hypocrisy” of those who acted as “self-appointed custodians of the world.”

However, not everything can be repackaged through bureaucratic manipulation.

Take the case of the Democracy Index compiled by the Economic Intelligence Unit of the Economist magazine. India’s latest rank – 142 amongst 187 countries -- in the Democracy Index (2019) is lower than what it was in 2006 (when the ranking began) slipping from being a “full democracy” to a “flawed democracy”. The index groups 60 parameters into five categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, government functioning, political participation and political culture.

In each of these categories, the scope of legislative fixing by the Law Ministry is extremely limited. The electoral process in India has become increasingly open to abuse and manipulation by professional election managers. The supervision of the Election Commission of India has become perceptibly less fair. As for pluralism, it is the ruling dispensation which has sought to reduce the minorities to lesser citizens. The freedom to protest and to speak up for the marginalised and the poor has been criminalised. So given the ideological bent of its masters, the Law Ministry can do precious little to improve India’s performance on any of these counts.

The present exercise is like academically dull students trying to find a pattern in the previous years’ exam question papers and what they believe are the biases of the examiners. Private coaching shops and crammers are ready to help them. However, friendly think-tanks and spin-doctors will not go beyond temporary image-fixing in this exam. If the government wants to pass the exam with flying colours it will have to address real change on the ground.