On Thursday (June 15), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Minister Atishi Marlena went on an anti-India tirade during a conference on ‘India at 100; Towards becoming a global leader’, which was held at the University of Cambridge.
At about 4 minutes and 12 seconds into the event, she tried to downplay India’s economic success story. “We are often told that India’s GDP has now crossed the trillion dollar mark. We are told that India is the fastest G20 economy and many other such pieces of information. But, the reality is far more worrying and underwhelming from that,” the AAP leader claimed.
“I think a better indicator, which really tells you about the State of the country, is the human development index…There are some indicators in which 190 countries participate I think. India ranks 132 out of 191. This is India at 75,” she alleged.
Atishi Marlena remarked that while India seeks happiness, believing that it is better off than its neighbours, countries such as Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Pakistan are supposedly ranked higher in the Human Development Index (HDI).
The truth about India’s decline in HDI
In September last year, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) released its report [pdf] on Human Development Index for 2021-22. At the very onset, it noted that 90% of the countries listed in the index had witnessed a decline in HDI value in 2020 or 2021.
India, which ranked 132 on the index out of 191 countries, was not an exception. First, UNDP itself acknowledged that India’s decline is in line with global trends in the face of crises such as the Russia-Ukraine war, the Covid-19 pandemic and ‘dangerous planetary changes.’
“Human Development – a measure of a nation’s health, education, and average income – has declined for two years in a row – 2020 and 2021, reversing five years of progress. This is in line with the global decline, indicating that human development across the world has stalled for the first time in 32 years,” it highlighted.
Atishi Marlena had tried to suggest that India was an isolated case when it came to a decline in HDI value while other countries were doing excellent on the front.
Second, UNDP conceded that the primary reason behind such a global trend was a drop in life expectancy. “A large contributor to the Human Development Index’s recent decline is a global drop in life expectancy, down from 72.8 years in 2019 to 71.4 years in 2021,” it pointed out.
In her speech, the AAP Minister listed various factors that contribute to HDI. Those included average income, health and education. The idea was to insinuate that somehow people’s income, education and health, as a whole, went for a toss under the Modi regime.
Third, UNDP pointed out, “The last two years have had a devastating impact on billions of people worldwide when crises like COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine hit back-to-back and interacted with sweeping social and economic shifts and dangerous planetary changes.”
It is important to note that between 2020 and 2022, the world had been reeling under a lot of challenges. These include but are not limited to the pandemic, war in Eastern Europe, rising energy prices and so on.
“These intersecting crises have impacted India’s development trajectory just as they have in much of the world,” UNDP emphasised. India, like other countries, witnessed a drop in life expectancy from 69.7 to 67.2 years.
Fourth, UNDP also pointed out that India’s HDI value is higher than the average human development in South Asia. “India’s HDI value has been steadily catching up to the world average since 1990 – indicating a faster than the global rate of progress in human development,” it said.
“This is a result of policy choices made by the country over time, including investments made in health and education,” the UN body added.
While speaking about the matter, UNDP Resident Representative in India Shoko Noda said, “India’s decline in human development mirrors this trend – impacted by intersecting crises. But there is good news. Compared to 2019, the impact of inequality on human development is lower. India is bridging the human development gap between men and women faster than the world.”
She underlined, “This development has come at a smaller cost to the environment. India’s growth story reflects the country’s investments in inclusive growth, social protection, gender-responsive policies, and push towards renewables to ensure no one is left behind.”
“Policies that focus on the 3Is (investment, insurance and innovation) will enable people to thrive in the face of uncertainty. India is already a frontrunner in these areas with its push towards renewable energy, boosting social security for the most vulnerable and driving the world’s largest vaccination drive through Co-WIN, supported by UNDP,” Shoko Noda pointed out.
Fifth, UDNP also praised India for lifting 27,10,00,000 crore people out of multi-dimensional poverty and providing access to affordable clean energy, water and sanitation. It stated that the country boosted access to social protection for vulnerable communities and demonstrated climate leadership.
“The world’s largest democracy is also fast-tracking the implementation and monitoring of the SDGs at the national and sub-national levels to meet the ambitious goals,” it concluded. As such, the scenario is not all grim, as portrayed by Atishi Marlena, at Cambridge University.
Atishi Marlena and her claims about hunger in India
“We are told that India has the largest number of billionaires…which went from 102 to 166 between 2020 and 2022. But there’s another figure which grew from 2020 to 2022 i.e. the number of hungry people in the country i.e. those who do not have enough food,” the AAP MLA claimed.
She further alleged, “And the number is from the same period when the number of billionaires was going up. It (the number of hungry people) went from 19 crores to 35 crores. India is the second largest producer of food in the world and yet it is the country where the largest number of people are malnourished.”
It must be mentioned that the said Global Hunger Report 2022, which Atishi Marlena cited during her anti-India tirade at Cambridge University, was rubbished by the Indian government back in October last year.
It had questioned the problematic methodology, undertaken to compile the report, and pointed out that 3 of the 4 indicators in the index are representative of children’s health (and thus not applicable/ representative of the entire population).
Interestingly, the fourth indicator ‘Proportion of Undernourished (PoU)’ population is based upon an opinion poll, which was conducted on a sample size of only 3000 people.
The participants were asked a total of only 8 questions, one of which included this – During the last 12 months, was there a time when, because of lack of money or other resources: You were worried you would not have enough food to eat? You ate less than you thought you should?
While rebuking the agencies for not doing due diligence, the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development said, “The report is not only disconnected from ground reality but also chooses to deliberately ignore efforts made by the Government to ensure food Security for the population, especially during the Covid Pandemic.”
“The data collected from a minuscule sample for a country of India’s size through the ‘Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)’ Survey Module has been used to compute PoU value for India which is not only wrong & unethical, it also reeks of obvious bias,” it highlighted.
This happened even though the Ministry asked the Food and Agriculture Organization (FA) of the United Nations to not use estimates based on FIES data since the ‘statistical output’ will not be based on merit.
“The three other indicators apart from PoU, included in Global Hunger Index relate primarily to children viz. Stunting, Wasting and Under 5 mortality. These indicators are outcomes of complex interactions of various other factors like drinking water, sanitation, genetics, environment and utilisation of food intake apart from hunger, which is taken as the causative/outcome factor for stunting and wasting in the GHI. Calculating hunger based on main indicators relating to health indicators of children is neither scientific nor rational,” the Indian government added.
The Ministry also laid down measures that it had undertaken to ensure food security. This includes the distribution of rations to 80 crore Indians (the largest food security programme in the world). It has allocated about 1121 Lakh MT of foodgrains (~ ₹3.91 Lakh Crore in food subsidy) to States and Union territories.
It also praised the State governments for the effective distribution of ration, supplementing the efforts of the Union government by providing edible oils, pulses and condiments to the people.
“Under Anganwadi Services, the since Covid-19 pandemic, supplementary nutrition was provided to approximately 7.71 crore chiup ton upto the age of 6 years and to 1.78 crore pregnant women and lactating mothers. 5.3 Million Metric Tonnes of Foodgrains was supplied,” it highlighted.
“Under the Pradhan Mantri Matri Vandana Yojna, more than 1.5 Crore registered women were provided Rs 5000/- on the birth of their first child for wage support and nutritious food during pregnancy and post-delivery period,” the Union government added.
It is thus evident that Atishi Marlena tried to defame India at the University of Cambridge based on an irrational, erroneous report ‘Global Hunger Index 2022’ published by two organisations, one based in Ireland (Concern Worldwide) and another in Germany (Welt Hunger Hilfe).
Interestingly, the same report cautions individuals and organisations to not compare scores and rankings over two years (something which Atishi did in her sweeping statement on hunger).
“Global Hunger Index (GHI) scores are comparable within each year’s report, but not between different years’ reports. The current and historical data on which the GHI scores are based are continually being revised and improved by the United Nations agencies that compile them, and each year’s GHI report reflects these changes. Comparing scores between reports may create the impression that hunger has changed positively or negatively from year to year, whereas in some cases the change may partly or fully reflect a data revision,” the report said in the FAQ section
Anti-India rant of Rahul Gandhi at the Cambridge University
On February 28 this year, Rahul Gandhi reiterated the talking points of the global Khalistan movement during his infamous presentation at the University of Cambridge.
The Congress scion randomly called out a Sikh man from the audience and claimed that Sikhs have been rendered second-class citizens in India by the Narendra Modi government.
“I mean I have got a Sikh gentleman sitting here. He is from the Sikh religion. And he comes from India, right? We have got Muslims in India, Christians in India, and we have got different languages in India…They are all India,” Rahul Gandhi had said.
“Mr Narendra Modi says he is not (a real Indian). Mr Narendra Modi says he (the Sikh guy in the room) is a second-class citizen in India. I don’t agree with him,” said Gandhi while making outlandish claims about the plight of the Sikh community in India.
Rahul Gandhi is provoking people by repeating lies again and again. 🙄🙄🙄
— Naren Mukherjee (@NMukherjee6) March 8, 2023
When did Narendra Modi said that Sikhs, Christians and Muslims Are Second Class Citizens in India? 🧐🧐🧐 pic.twitter.com/McrbKAZnjZ
Despite being well aware that the global Khalistan movement has been trying to brainwash the Sikh community, he exploited the opportunity at Cambridge University to present a distorted image of India to the world.
During his talk at the University of Cambridge, Rahul Gandhi also made a sweeping claim that Muslims in India are also ‘second class citizens’ according to Narendra Modi.
By doing so, the Congress scion played into the hands of the Islamists who have been hellbent on indoctrinating Muslims en masse that they are not safe in India.
The vitriolic narrative had been in motion for a long time and amplified by several folds after the Narendra Modi government was voted to power in 2014.
