Every year a a bunch of 'independent research bodies' publish 'global rankings'. More often than not, in India, these rankings become a subject of newspaper headlines, op-eds, TV debates and opinion pieces that dominate the public discourse for a while. At times rankings are also raised in the parliament, steering not only public policy one way or the other.
It was only last year that I caught a glimpse of the sleight of hand practiced those who prepare these rankings. The Global Hunger Index released last year ranked India at 107 (of 121 countries). Having witnessed first-hand the tremendous effort that went into ensuring the distribution of food stockpiles during the Covid years, these rankings seemed odd. It took only a bit of digging into the GHI charts to realise that the core issue was nutrition - not the availability or access to food. But, hey, 'hunger' sounds sexier.
Democracy is another bugbear. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) claims that Indian democracy has been in decline ever since Mr. Modi first took office in 2014, with its international ranking falling from number 27 in the world (just below Belgium) to number 46 (two spots below South Africa). The EIU now labels India a “flawed democracy” characterised by “serious deterioration in the quality of democracy under leader Narendra Modi”. Then there is the American government-funded think tank Freedom House which finds India to be only “partially free”, with an overall freedom rank of tied-85th in the world.
These rankings were taken to be the gospel truth until people started asking a simple question - on what basis where these rankings created? How does one compare a complex multi-enthnic, multi-lingual, multi-everything country like India, with, say, Luxembourg?
This year, Prof. Salvatore Babones, from the University of Sydney published a paper that examined how India fared on rankings related to democracy and human rights. A quantitative, comparative sociologist, Babones noticed that the rankings presented by agencies such as Freedom House, Sweden's V-Dem and the RSF Press Freedom Index, stood on rather shaky ground.
The paper published by Babones has its focus on Sweden’s university-based Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-DEM) which ranks India at 108 in the world for electoral democracy (two places above Myanmar) and 97th in the world for liberal democracy (one place above Papua New Guinea). It claims that India is no longer a liberal democracy at all, but is now an “electoral autocracy” on a par with Russia!
On what basis are these rankings created? Turns out that behind the facade of 'higher mathematics' lies ideologically coloured opinions of carefully selected 'experts':
(1) Freedom House "index of freedom" is based on a survey with a series of questions aimed at 'experts on India' (not necessarily Indians) . It has questions like - is the media free? are the elections fair? is the election commission unbiased? - all qualitative impressions summed up into a number
(2) Swedish V-Dem ranks India is an electoral autocracy alongside Russia and Turkey . This institute sends questionnaire to social science professors (the list is secret and it leans to the Left). This survey contains 5 parts - 2 objective parts: one about universal suffrage and whether officials are elected. All countries including Vietnam and Hong Kong get perfect scores here but not India. Why? Because 2 of 550+ Members of Parliament were selected from the Anglo-Indian community until 2019! The second set is a rating on technical criteria - is the electoral roll complete? was there any violence at polls? has any party been prohibited? Below a certain score countries are ranked as autocracies! Nothing in the survey looks at the obvious questions - are elections competitive? can the opposition realistically win?
(3) RSF Press Freedom Index - again a survey - 'safety of journalists' -- has the govt ever jailed a journalist? -- 'they search of reasons to justify a score'.
It is great to see independent minded academics calling the bluff of these self-styled surveyors and purveyors of the "Charisma of Numbers".
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REFERENCES & LINKS
* YT Interview - The India Forum - https://youtu.be/AqSuXuWQyPg
* V-Dem Sweden - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_indices_(V-Dem)
* (14Sep'22) The Print - https://theprint.in/opinion/why-indias-democracy-ranking-should-be-taken-with-a-grain-of-salt/1127765/
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