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Friday, March 29, 2024
YourTurnSubscriberWrites: Indian performance in The Human Freedom Index shows its a long...

SubscriberWrites: Indian performance in The Human Freedom Index shows its a long way to be a ‘superpower’

India might drop its ranking even worse if they included human freedom abuses during Covid, writes Raghavendar Askani.

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Over the decades, India witnessed growth in various sectors, but the growth over these years cannot be regarded enough for contesting India in the realms of being a superpower. Being a superpower means possessing an ability to exert influence on others. Although China is one of the largest economies in the world and possesses one of the most powerful military bases in the world, we should note that China is a political superpower and the world is yet not ready to accept any of China’s resolutions and suggestions on key political decisions, especially in countries such as South America, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia, where people are guaranteed civil liberties and human rights. These countries have deep respect and commitment for human freedom and civil rights. Influencing other countries in the domains of economy, diplomacy, military, and technology can make a country assert its strength through a geopolitical and geoeconomics domain, but yet these factors can likely also state that economic and political power alone is not always empowering. Recognizing the dignity and liberty of civilians, a country’s progress can likely be determined as we saw in Scandinavian countries. Human freedom is an inherently valuable social concept. The Human Freedom Index 2021 is an important resource measured by the Cato Institute and Fraser Institute.

Deterioration of human freedom in India

The 11-year-old Human Freedom Index released its latest 2019 report at the end of 2021, which based its findings on pre-pandemic research. This was calculated based on surveys conducted worldwide, including India. India might drop its ranking even worse if they included human freedom abuses in India during covid.

In the report, the country was at the 119th out of 165 positions but now has fallen behind its South Asian counterparts and other countries such as Singapore (48), Timor-Leste (78), Malaysia (82), Nepal (84), Indonesia (85), Thailand (96), Bhutan (98), Philippines (101) and Sri Lanka (112), Cambodia (115), Brunei Darussalam (116). Apart from that, South Asian countries have achieved better growth in human freedom than the previous report, but India has been declining its position than the previous report.

Overall, Personal Freedom in India has performed on the various areas followingly:

Area Rating Rating
PERSONAL FREEDOM 6.20
Rule of law  4.3
Procedural justice  4.5
Civil justice  4.5
Criminal justice 4.0
Security and safety 8.2
Homicide  9.1
Disappearances, conflicts, terrorism 7.3
Movement 7.8
Freedom of movement (V-Dem)  8.2
Freedom of movement (CLD) 7.5
Religion 5.7
Freedom of religion 5.5
Religious organization repression 6.0
Association, assembly, civil society 5.2
Civil society entry and exit 2.6
Freedom of assembly 5.3
Freedom to form/run political parties 8.8
Civil society repression 3.9
Expression and information 5.9
Press killed 9.6
Press jailed 9.8
Academic and cultural expression 5.0
Harassment of journalists 4.9
Government censorship effort 4.1
Internet censorship effort 4.8
Media self-censorship 3.2
Media freedom 6.1
Freedom of expression 5.5
Relationships 6.2
Same-sex relationships 5.0
Divorce 5.0
Inheritance rights 5.0
Female genital mutilation 10.0

The Top 5 Human Freedom countries in the world are Switzerland, New Zealand, Denmark, Estonia, and Ireland in the world while the Syrian Arab Republic, Egypt, Venezuela, Yemen, Sudan are ranked as the worst in the human freedom index.

Indian performance in The Human Freedom Index covers many aspects of the study and how India is performing in most important aspects such as religious freedom, women’s freedom, security and safety, rule of law, civil liberties. Article 25-28 of the Indian Constitution explicitly protects and upholds religious freedom and free societies respect the right to practice a religion of one’s choosing. The exercise of religion can be both a supremely private matter involving a person’s strongest beliefs and a social affair practiced in an organized way among larger groups. Over the past seven years, religious discrimination, repression, and intolerance of social dissent have reached their peak. In some states, there have been growing indicators of Hindu bigotry and bigotry over religious freedom and institutions.

The contest between liberty and power is an ongoing contract that is witnessed through the historical purviews across millennia. For just as long, it has inspired competing conceptions of freedom. In our country, people are becoming victims of power politics games and are contributing towards indiscriminately promises to win elections. The relationship between vote and society has broken and the notion that whoever wins is the same remains in the minds of the people. This is making to forego the possibility of taking a poor country like ours towards development. 

Therefore, one can conclude that human freedom is essential for any country or society to embrace progress and provide an opportunity for future generations to experience and enjoy better freedom and prosperity.

These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.


Also read: India rated ‘partially free’ for second consecutive year in Freedom House report


 

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