Global Rankings: Hunger, Democracy and Human Rights

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/

Ukraine & Sy Hersh

 It is now one year since the Russia-Ukraine war began.

All through the murder and mayhem, the wanton destruction of cities and displacement of people that has been happening since 24 February, 2022, one thing has become increasingly clear - the whole thing is what we suspected it to be: a set-up. It is the people of Ukraine who are getting played by its 'friends and allies'. 

The current situation reminds us of the African proverb  - 'When elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled'. The trampling is happening not only in Ukraine but also on the rest of continental Europe. And yet, the amazing thing is that not one newspaper or magazine from the so-called 'free-world' had the guts to speak truth to power, and provide a platform to the most celebrated investigative journalist of our times, Seymour Hersh. 

A few years ago the New Yorker had refused to carry Hersh's story on the truth behind the killing of Osama Bin Laden - it was picked up by the London Review of Books. This time even the LRB chickened out out, so he had to publish it as a blog-post titled, "How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline".

Thanks to this one journalist we now have a better understanding of how this whole tragedy played out. How the US ignored its own tacit agreement with Russia while expanding NATO; how it positioned nuclear missiles closer and closer to Russian cities until it created a situation for an 'unproved aggression'; how it resented Europe's closer economic ties with a rival to a point where it ganged up with Norway to blow up under-sea gas pipelines that belonged to its own close allies! 

Now USA is in a happy situation where it (along with Norway) can sell overpriced fuel to its hapless European allies while at the same time, ramping up its own arms export export industry. Sell energy, sell guns, and go laughing all the way to the bank. So what if a few million Ukrainians and Russians die in the bargain?

Ever since this story came out I have been poring over articles, YouTube videos - anything to understand more about the life and work of Seymour Hersh. What an amazing life!

The United States of America redeems itself - to some extent - by not harming this journalist, and by letting him carry on with his work.

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REFERENCES & LINKS

Substack blog - How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline (2023) - https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream

NY Public Library (2018) - https://youtu.be/JRvXx-H0b-Y

The Killing of OBL (2016) - https://youtu.be/yyISsqHShlM

LRB Interview (2016) - https://youtu.be/R_zk5b7v9M0

ERR_INTERNET_DISCONNECTED

Sitting in our metro cities it is difficult to imagine a world of alternate realities. The internet and our access to it, is perhaps one such world. One where screens suddenly blank out and you end up with a digi-dinosaur hopping over cactus.

At a panel discussion organised by the Indian Express yesterday, a group of experts sat on the stage to discuss what seemed like a rather vague and tenuous topic - "Is Internet Shutdown a New Order for Law and Order"? The fact that this event - IE Thinc - was sponsored by Facebook made me all the more skeptical about its relevance. 

The panel had an interesting mix:  a young bureaucrat responsible for an internet shutdown at Ranchi; a representative from the Intenet Freedom Foundation, one from the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), and an economist. Except for the last one, who seemed long winded and disconnected like most economists, the other three made sense. 

I was surprised to know that the Government of India is very secretive about sharing data on internet shutdowns. Data accessed from other sources (mainly UN) indicate that there have been at least 254 shutdowns in 19 states during the period 2012-2018. 

While the initial intent of many had been to prevent riots and loss of lives from the the rumours spread on Facebook, Whatsapp etc., internet shutdowns were now being implemented for reasons that could only be described as flippant and irresponsible. In the most recent case, in Udaipur, Rajasthan, the internet was shut down for a few days to prevent cheating in a government recruitment exam!

Considering how internet shutdowns affected the lives of millions of citizens - loss of business, access to basic services, education, payments and so on - what was the legal basis for such disruptions? Here are some of the laws/rules enumerated:

• Article 19(2) - places "Reasonable restrictions" on freedom
• Section 144 CPC - "Unlawful Assembly" -- used against freedom fighters during freedom struggle to confiscate Gandhi Caps, now used to shut down the net.
• Rules for Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services, 2017 -- just requires an SP+ officer to issue order
• Section 95 CPC - banning of books
• Section 6.2 of Telegraph Act - used for phone/network tapping

I am glad I decided to attend this event. If not anything else, it was a sobering reminder that it takes very little to turn the smartphone in our hands into a useless lump of plastic and metal.

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LINKS:

- Rules for suspension of telecom services, 2017 - http://www.dot.gov.in/circulars/temporary-suspension-telecom-services-public-emergency-or-public-safety-rules-2017
- Internet Freedom Foundation - https://internetfreedom.in/
- Report on IE event -7 Sept., 2018 - https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/iethinc-debates-implications-of-internet-shutdowns/1305181/