Mocking India and disparaging the Indian government is a favourite activity of Indian liberals. They capitalise on any opportunity to attack the Narendra Modi-led Central government, even if it means making misleading assertions. Recently, the Henley Passport Index for 2024 was released. While France topped the ranking, India dropped one notch from the previous year to 85th place.
A screengrab of a Mint report with the headline: “World’s most powerful passports 2024: India slips one notch to 85th, ranked below Maldives, S. Arabia; France tops list” has been widely shared by the Modi-hating lot on social media to assert that somehow India has become ‘weaker’ than a small country like Maldives.
Another Modi hater wrote on X in Tamil, “You scumbags who mocked Maldives… get in line. The Modi or rather India hater conveniently ignored the fact that it Maldivian ministers who mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Blinded by Modi-hate these people have no idea that Maldives is dependent on India for the majority of goods, making India one of its primary trade partners. India’s exports to the Maldives accounted for Rs 49 crore of the overall trade between India and the Maldives in 2022 making India the island nation’s second-largest trading partner. In addition to providing essentials like food, water and infrastructure, and higher education, India has also been a major support for the island nation in the arena of medical tourism. India is the most preferred destination for Maldivian medical travellers.
Interestingly, while India continues to grow economically, Maldives Maldives remains at “high risk” of external and overall debt distress.
Liberals targeting Modi government over India’s ranking in the Henley Index 2024 raise question if these people even know and understand what the ranking means and the methodology behind it.
Notably, France topped the index as its passport provides visa-free access to 194 countries whereas India ranked 85th as its passport provides visa-free access to 62 countries.
While left-liberals are celebrating it as more of a ‘defeat’ of Modi government and humiliation for India, unfortunately (for them) there is nothing of that sort.
Methodology of Henley Passport Index
The Henley Passport Index, published by Henley and Partners, a London-based worldwide citizenship and residence advisory firm, claims to be the “original ranking of all the world’s passports”. The index compiles statistics from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which oversees inter-airline cooperation worldwide. The Henley Passport Index is updated in real-time when countries’ visa policies change. It includes 227 destinations and 199 passports.
The index is based on data received from the IATA on a specific day each year. To create a visa list—a list of places that a passport holder can visit without a visa, with a visa on arrival, an e-visa, or a traditional visa—this data is supplemented by taking into account changes in visa regulations in real-time using publically accessible sources.
“For each travel destination, if no visa is required for passport holders from a country or territory, then a score with value = 1 is created for that passport. A score with value = 1 is also applied if passport holders can obtain a visa on arrival, a visitor’s permit, or an electronic travel authority (ETA) when entering the destination. These visa-types require no pre-departure government approval, because of the specific visa-waiver programs in place. Where a visa is required, or where a passport holder has to obtain a government-approved electronic visa (e-Visa) before departure, a score with value = 0 is assigned. A score with value = 0 is also assigned if passport holders need pre-departure government approval for a visa on arrival, a scenario we do not consider ‘visa-free’. The total score for each passport is equal to the number of destinations for which no visa is required (value = 1), under the conditions defined above,” Henley Global explains on its website.
Notably, international relations and the importance placed by a government on tourism are significant in determining the ‘power’ of a country’s passport, since many countries which have good diplomatic ties with other countries offer extensive visa-free access to other countries. However, reciprocity plays a crucial role here.
India has a strict policy in this regard. The country allows only three countries namely- Japan, South Korea and United Arab Emirates (UAE), as per India Visa Online’s website. India is very reserved when it comes to reciprocation leading to a lower ranking in the Henley Passport Index. The Indian government does not apparently intend to increase reciprocation just to rank higher on a passport but prioritises the interests of the country.
In 2022, the Indian passport ranked 87th, with no visa required for about 60 destinations. In 2023, India placed 80th, with visa-free travel to 57 places. India ranked 80th in 2024 with 62 visa-free travel destinations, however, it now ranks 85th in the 2024 Q2 index, even though the number of visa-free travel destinations has not changed.
Notably, the opposition parties and left-liberal ecosystem often uses these international indexes to target the Modi government. Last year, a politically unstable, flood-hit Pakistan even while being on the verge of an economic collapse ranked better in the World Happiness Index 2023 with 118th position while India, an economically stable, and one of the fastest growing economies in the world ranked 137th.
This raised questions over the authenticity and value of such an index. Rejecting India’s ranking in the index, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had said, “You should actually tell everybody to come to Bengaluru – you can see which is the world’s happiest place, particularly on a Friday night,” the minister said citing an example of his friend from Singapore who once said Indians looked happier than Europeans.
Similarly, back in 2022, the Indian government had rubbished the Global Hunger Report saying that “Misinformation seems to be the hallmark of the annually released Global Hunger Index.” The central government had issued a statement highlighting the prejudice and erroneous method used by the agency, pointing out how irrelevant, and questions not searching for factual responses were used in the survey to arrive at the Hunger Index. Last year as well, the government also rejected the Global Hunger Report 2023 where India ranked 111 out of 125 countries saying that the the index suffers from “serious methodological issues and shows a malafide intent”.
"Global Hunger Index is not a balanced approach to measure hunger, let's be conscious of it," says Finance Minister #NirmalaSitharaman in #RajyaSabha
— Hindustan Times (@htTweets) February 8, 2024
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During her speech in Rajya Sabha on 8th February, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had rubbished the report and said “Global Hunger Index is not a balanced approach to measure hunger, let’s be conscious of it.”
