Saturday, 05 Oct, 2024
A detailed analysis of the 2021 Report released on December 16, 2021 discovers shocking misrepresentations and outright falsehoods.
Yashwant Deshmukh & Sutanu Guru
( Yashwant Deshmukh is Founder and editor in chief and Sutanu Guru the Executive Director of C-Voter Foundation)
Along with temperatures in the northern hemisphere, the popularity of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the ability of professors and students in American colleges & universities to freely express their views, the rankings of India on global indices & reports keep falling. The latest is the Human Freedom Index released by Cato Institute of America along with Fraser Institute of Canada on December 16, 2021. India ranked 119 out of 165 countries, below illustrious peers like Ghana, Haiti, Gabon, Fiji, Bulgaria, Hungary and Mexico, among others. But that’s not the story.
The story is the incredible misrepresentations, wrong assumptions and outright falsehoods. Our research team is now determined to conduct detailed field studies, surveys and academic research to find out the reality behind these ratings and rankings. This small analysis is just an appetiser. We know these are not easy allegations to make against a prestigious global Think Tank like Cato; but what do you do when facts stare you in the face? This is particularly so when India has seen rankings tanking ever since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister. In this index, India ranked 89 in 2008 from where it languidly moved down to 90 in 2013. Suddenly, it dropped to 106 in 2014, and the fall continues. We are not here to quibble whether Mr.Modi is a de facto dictator; we are merely examining the veracity of the conclusions drawn by the report.
Let’s dispense with the methodology first. The index calculates both personal and economic freedom to arrive at the final ratings and rankings. We will focus here on personal freedom to keep the analysis shorter and less cumbersome. (In any case, India’s ratings and rankings in economic freedom have improved.
While calculating personal freedom, the report analyses seven broad categories, each with their sub categories. They are: Rule of law which analyses justice delivery; Safety & Security; Movement of People; Religion (freedom); Association, assembly & civil society; Freedom of Expression & Information and Relationships. India rates and ranks very low in rule of law. That is justified given the country has more than 40 million pending cases with no end to the nightmare in sight. It ranks reasonably well in safety and security as it deals with homicides per 100,000 people and disappearances. It again ranks reasonably well on free movement of people though there is a dip here since 2013. (https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2021-12/human-freedom-index-2021.pdf).
Now lets come to an issue that can be honestly debated, if we are honest with ourselves: Religion. There is a score that ranges from 0(the worst) to 4(the best). The scores have been provided by V-Dem, the Swedish Think Tank which recently declared that India is an “electoral autocracy” in its annual report. This index has multiplied the score by 2.5 to arrive at a “comparable” figure. But in effect, India gets a dismal score of 2.2 out of a maximum 4 in the sub category Freedom of Religion. In the sub category Religious Organisation Repression, India gets a score of 2.4. Incidentally, Pakistan gets a score of 3.16, much better than India in the same category. Even if you truly believe that India is discriminating against minorities (particularly the 200 million plus Muslims) and harasses them according to the report methodology since 2014, are you buying this nonsense that Pakistan is better off than India on this score? Hungary and Poland have effectively “banned” Muslim refugees; senior government ministers routinely deride the Muslim refugees as “invaders” and yet, Hungary and Poland get scores of 3.44 and 3.76 while India manages with 2.4. Something doesn’t add up here.
That’s followed by Association, assembly and civil society which has four sub categories. India does well on the one related to freedom to form political parties. In the other three it is scrapping the bottom of the barrel. In the civil society entry and exit indicator, India scores an abysmal 1.04 instead of a maximum of four because the methodology says that India exercises “Substantial control. The government licenses all CSOs and uses political criteria to bar organizations that are likely to oppose the government.” India performs abysmally with a score of 2.14 in freedom of assembly. According to the methodology that score means freedom of assembly is:. “Fairly restricted. Some elements of civic organizations exist, but oppositional organizations with relevance for governance are prohibited, disabled, or systematically repressed and demonstrations critical of the government are exposed to numerous interventions and prohibitions”. Among others, Angola, Bulgaria, Mexico and Nigeria perform better than India. Imagine: it seems opposition parties can’t hold rallies and demonstrations in India!!
Then comes the real shocker: India scores 1.56 in civil society repression. The Report states that India represses substantially. And adds, “ In addition to the kinds of harassment outlined in responses 2 and 3 below, the government also arrests, tries, and imprisons leaders of and participants in oppositional CSOs who have acted lawfully. Other sanctions include disruption of public gatherings and violent sanctions of activists (beatings, threats to families, destruction of valuable property). Examples include Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Poland under martial law, and Serbia under Milošević.” Incidentally, Pakistan fares better than India in the report in this indicator. Even Singapore manages a score of 2.36 compared to 1.56 for India. Not to forget, Nigeria, where the Boko Haram has been on a rampage for almost a decade, gets a fabulous score of 3.56. How?
There is more when you examine the category Freedom of Expression & Information. Samir Saran & Jaipal wrote for ORF on May 21, 2021 at the peak of the second wave when actual and fictitious funeral pyres and photographed and photoshopped dead bodies were being gleefully shared: “ What is disturbing is the near universal, vicious and negative portrayal of a land that is proud of its democratic politics (just as many other nations are), with a loud, disruptive and often aggressive media, and mobilisations led by communities that have toppled-governments and, sometimes, catalysed perverse outcomes.” The scores given to India in this report seem to mock at what the above mentioned authors feel.
There is not much to discuss about press killings and jailings. One would also agree with the low score for internet restrictions because state governments now temporarily ban access even when there is an entrance examination going on. The very low score for media self censorship is debatable and contentious. Hundreds of outlets routinely deride and even abuse the current regime with gay abandon; but there also are many who are self censoring. The abysmal scores in other indicators not only seem contentious, but ideologically driven to an extent. In academic and cultural expression, the India rank stayed at a healthy 3 (the maximum is 4) from 2008 to 2017. And then it dropped to 2, which according to the methodology, it is “ Somewhat respected by public authorities. Academic freedom and freedom of cultural expression are practiced routinely, but strong criticism of the government is sometimes met with repression.”
Another indicator is harassment of journalists where India ranks 1.96. According to the report methodology, scores of 1 or 2 are given because: “1: Some journalists occasionally offend powerful actors but they are almost always harassed or worse and eventually are forced to stop.
2: Some journalists who offend powerful actors are forced to stop but others manage to continue practicing journalism freely for long periods of time.” In Freedom of expression, the India score is 2.27. As they say, we are speechless. In the United States, it is now routine for “wakes” to cancel students, professors, TV hosts, authors, singers and activists who do not subscribe to their worldview. They lose their jobs, livelihoods and their futures. And yet the country continues to get a score of 4 without a word in the report on this disturbing trend. In media freedom, India gets a score of 2.44 and is ranked lower than Pakistan.
We come to the outright falsehood while examining the seventh criterion, Relationships. One of them is freedom given to practice LGBT relationships. How are scores assigned? According to the methodology, “A rating of 10 was assigned to countries where male-to-male ( & female to female & transgender relationships) relationships are legal. A rating of 5 was assigned to countries where male-to-male (and female to female plus transfer relationships)relationships are legal only in some areas of the country. A rating of 0 was assigned to countries where…relationships are illegal.”
The report claims it has used data and information till the end of 2019. On September 6, 2018, the Supreme Court of India made LGBT relationships legal. In 2019, the Indian Parliament passed a law making LGBT relationships and rights legal. Which planet are the researchers at Cato living in? Not just that, the report gives a score of 10 in 2008 and 2013 when LGBT relationships were illegal. Suddenly, in 2014, the magical 10 drops to 5!
Is this because of sheer ignorance, stupidity or deliberate malevolence? We simply don’t know. But most of the data has been taken from two sources: V-Dem Institute of Sweden and Freedom House of America. Both of them have categorically hinted, if not stated in their 2021 reports that the Election Commission of India and the Supreme Court of India can no longer be trusted when it comes to ruling in favour of the current regime.
What can one say?
