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Video editor: Ashish Maccune
Let’s play a game – I’ll tell you some facts and at the end, you tell me whether India mein sab changa si (Everything is fine in India). Okay? Let’s go.
On the Social Mobility Index of the World Economic Forum, India ranked 76th among 82 countries due to our poor performance on improving the quality of access to education and health.
ALL of the above headlines are from January 2020.
First, let’s talk about India’s downslide on the Democracy Index, which is an annual list compiled by The Economist Intelligence Unit.
In the 2019 rankings, India was placed 51st among 165 countries and two territories, having received its lowest score since the index was first published in 2006.
The parameters on which this index is based include political culture and civil liberties.
As per the report, the aspect that primarily caused India’s drop in rankings is “an erosion of civil liberties in the country”. The issues and examples highlighted by The Economist Intelligence Unit include the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, the house arrests of politicians opposing the move, the prolonged internet shutdown there, the botched-up NRC exercise in Assam, and the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
And coupled with the kind of hate speech you hear from our politicians, are you really surprised that we have fared so miserably?
Here, sample this:
And these are just a couple of recent examples from dozens and dozens of such hateful comments by those in power. And there’s no action taken against them either.
India’s GDP growth rate slipped to 4.5 percent, its weakest pace in more than six years in the quarter from July to September 2019. The slowdown is so severe that the IMF is citing it as the reason for trimming the global growth forecast.
Yet those in power continue to exhibit sheer denial, or worse, attempt to suppress worrisome data.
Part of the reason India has ranked so low on the WEF’s social mobility index – we’re seventh last in a list of 82 countries – is our poor performance in areas like access to healthcare and education.
Out of the 82 countries, India ranks:
Now think long and hard – when was the last time you remember the political discourse in this country focusing on either education or healthcare, two massively important policy areas?
As an analysis of TV news debates by the online content creator Official PeeingHuman showed, both the mainstream media and those in power are happy to continue attacking either Pakistan or the Opposition in their news coverage and political communication.
Meanwhile, budgets for top educational institutions are slashed, and some 2.4 million Indians die of treatable conditions every year, the worst situation among 136 nations studied for a report published in The Lancet in 2018.
Another barrier to social mobility is the deeply entrenched caste system in the country. For example, more than 27 percent of Indian households are estimated to practice untouchability and one manual scavenger dies every five days while cleaning sewers and septic tanks.
From healthcare to education, to caste discrimination and unemployment, these are the issues that should be priorities of the government.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)
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