Anuj Goyal and Sanjay Kumar
The South Asia region has seen the fastest growth in Human Development Index (HDI) between 1990 and 2017 among all regions of the world.
South Asia suffers from the widest gap between the human development indicators for men and women in the world.. While South Asian men may be living in conditions of middle to high middle HDI, the region’s women lead a life of low HDI.
The Policy and Politics of Development
Development is widely recognised as the
primary aim of social policy. This is especially true of South Asia, where a
large number of people suffer from chronic hunger, disease, social exclusion,
poverty and economic vulnerability. Development however also has a very clear
political and ideological heft attached to it. The appeal of development is
directly related to the nature of the perceived lack of development. Hence,
different social strata and classes of South Asians view it through their
location specific prisms. For classes at the top of the socio-economic pyramid,
a ‘world class’ infra-structure in the form of airports, toll highways, flashy
shopping malls and glass covered high rises are taken to be the synonyms of
development. On the other hand, politicians seeking votes from villagers and
working people living in teeming bastis and slums of Lahore, Karachi,
Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Dacca, or Colombo, talk of ‘road, electricity and
water’ as development.
Development as a discourse or policy is
always a goal-oriented project. Development economists, policy makers and state
bureaucratic and private institutional functionaries have been developing
frameworks of objective indices to identify targets, shortfalls and
achievements of development. The past three decades have seen consolidation of
a human development-based discourse and policy regime, whose most visible
proponent and vehicle have been the yearly UNDP reports, which quantify and
publish human development indices for different countries and regions of the
world. The first Human Development Report (HDR) of the UNDP in 1990 was the
work of Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq. The theoretical foundation of these
reports is the ‘capabilities approach’ and the concept of ‘development as
freedom’ propounded by Indian economist Amartya Sen. According to Sen, the
purpose of development should be increased capabilities of ordinary people, so
that they can gainfully use available opportunities and widen their sphere of
freedom.
A key contribution of the UNDP HD
reports is the expansion of the idea of development beyond economic growth and
a challenge to the assumption that economic wealth of a nation automatically
means a better life for its citizens. Human development, as measured at
society-wide scale includes outcomes for health, education and other essential
facets of well-being. A comprehensive Human Development Index for every
country, which besides per capita income includes contributions from data on
life expectancy, infant and maternal mortalities, literacy rates and
educational achievements, etc. is a realisation of this idea in practice.
Over time the HDRs of UNDP have evolved
their methodology and included a more diverse set of data. A multi-dimensional
poverty index was used in 2010 to grasp poverty as deprivation in multiple
domains, rather than only one criterion of income below a poverty line. A
gender inequality index (GII) and an inequality adjusted human development
index (IHDI) were also developed to quantify the degree of gender inequality
and deleterious effects of social and economic inequalities on human
development. The 2018 Statistical Abstract also includes data on the extent of
environmentally sustainable development achieved by different countries.
Despite such changes, radical and
Marxist activists and scholars have been critical of the ideology and practice
of development within capitalism. One line of criticism has focused on the
close relationship of developmental policies and practices in poorer countries
with the priorities and ideologies of the rich capitalist countries. Andre
Gunder Frank had used the evocative phrase ‘development of under-development’
to highlight the understanding that under-development is not a given, but the
result of a very specific form of capitalism in poorer countries. The
teleological character of the concept of development assumes that the end-state
of development, presumably achieved by the ‘developed’ countries, is a state of
perfection with no internal conflicts and contradictions. This assumption acts
as a strong attractor to shore up the ideological hegemony of rich countries.
Further, the focus on visible deprivations and outcomes makes it difficult to
assess structural features responsible for deprivations in the first place.
Poverty is not an incidental effect of people being poor, rather it is
reproduced by existing property relations, wage rates, and the legal and
illegal power of landlords and employers over the landless and workers.
Notwithstanding such criticisms, it
cannot be denied that the HDRs of UNDP have helped in shifting the development
discourse to the state of education, health and diverse sources of poverty.
Many countries have started making their own human development reports to
better map the trajectory of their development, and measure their success
against set goals. These reports also help in analyzing different dimensions of
development and deprivations. For example, the Pakistan Human Development
Report 2017 identifies education as the weakest link in the country’s
development, and rightly emphasizes that ‘… Pakistan falls within the low
development category globally on account of its inability to invest in quality
education’. The third practical utility of HDRs is the help these give in
finding the character of social and economic change in a country through a
comparative analysis of its human development data with other similarly placed
countries. This article attempts to do this for countries of the South Asia.
After the withdrawal of British
colonial power, all countries in this region followed similar policies of
state-led capitalist growth. After the consolidation of domestic propertied classes,
all have adopted market-based neoliberalism. Yet, subtle differences in the
nature of popular culture, mass politics, penetration of international donor
agencies, and shades of difference in the character of state power have
produced markedly diverse living conditions for ordinary people. Varying levels
of human development open up a unique window to the sub-regional diversity of
the region. An appreciation of this diversity is essential for evolving a
contemporary South Asian identity, which goes beyond already existing shared
strands to a more conscious fashioning of a pan-South Asian imagination.
Human Development in South Asia: What
do HDRs of UNDP say?
The most noted parts of HDRs are
country rankings based upon a unified human development index. The HDR 2019
provides data for 189 countries. The three largest countries of South Asia
namely, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are placed in the category of medium
human development. Their country rankings are 129, 152 and 135 respectively.
The two Himalayan countries of Nepal and Bhutan have country rankings of 134
and 147, and are also placed in the medium human development category. The two
island countries of Sri Lanka and Maldives have significantly better human
development parameters than the rest of South Asia, and are placed in the high
human development category with country ranking of 71 and 104 respectively.
Afghanistan, whose people have suffered nearly four decades of civil war and
foreign occupation, is the only country ranked in low human development
category, at rank 170. So, if one were to traverse South Asia from South to
North, the level of human development decreases.
Another interesting statistic is the
difference between a country’s per capita income ranking and its HDI ranking. A
positive difference indicates that for the given level of economic resources,
the country has done a better job of providing a decent life to its average
citizens. A negative difference indicates failure to do so due to social and
economic inequalities. Differences in these rankings for South Asian countries
are: India -5, Pakistan -17, Bangladesh 6, Sri Lanka 24, Maldives -17, Bhutan
-23, Nepal 13, and Afghanistan 1. Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh show success
of social development policies. Pakistan, India, Maldives and Bhutan may be
richer, but their people are not leading such good lives.
HDI Dynamics in South Asia
According to the HDI Statistical
Updates for 2018, the South Asia region[i]
has seen the fastest growth in HDI between 1990 and 2017 among all regions of
the world. Its HDI grew by 45.3% during this period. A low initial level does
account for this jump. However, it is also clear that the past three decades
have indeed witnessed a phenomenal development rarely seen in the region’s
history. The cumulative growth of HDI per year during the period is 1.35
percent. The data in 2019 HDR shows that the growth rate was 1.36% between 1990
and 2000. It picked up significantly to 1.49% in the next decade. But again
dropped significantly to 1.18% between 2010 and 2018. Does it mean that the
uptick of the 2000-2010 decade was unsustainable? Only future data can give a
definite answer. However, economic headwinds in India and Pakistan, the two
largest economies of the region, indicate that the answer might be yes.
Country specific differences and
changes in HDI with time give a more variegated picture. Figures 1A and 1B below
show changes for different countries for this period.
Fig 1A and Fig 1B HDI for South Asian
countries
(Source:
All graphed data are taken from UNDP HDI Reports)
Pakistan in Fig 1A is a very prominent
laggard. In 1990 its HDI was higher than Bangladesh and Nepal. But since then,
both of the latter countries have done better in human development, and now
rank higher than Pakistan. This is despite the fact that the per capita income
of Pakistan has been consistently double, or more than double of these two
countries, as shown in Fig 2A. This instantiates the important understanding
behind the policy of human development that if a society is deeply unequal,
economic growth does not automatically translate into a better life for average
citizens. Figs 1B and 2B offer more evidence that reinforces such an understanding.
Maldives’ per capita income has consistently been higher than Sri Lanka, but
the latter has always had a better HDI. It is only after 2005 that there
appears to be a shift towards greater emphasis on human development in Maldives.
Its HDI in 1995 was nearly 20 percent less than that of Sri Lanka. By 2017 the
gap had been narrowed down to 10 percent.
Fig 2A (GDP
per capita in 2011$PPP)
Fig 2B (GDP per capita in 2011$PPP)
A very sensitive indicator of the
availability of health services to the poor in a country is the rate of infant
mortality, i.e. number infants dying per 1,000 live births. The poor are rarely
able to buy these services from the market. The rate of infant mortality is an
indicator of the attention the state and society in a country give to the
condition of the poor. Some of the data on it for the World, South Asia, and
some some countries is given in the table below.
|
|
Rate of Infant Mortality 2016 |
|
World |
29.9 |
|
South Asia |
37.8 |
|
Very High HDI
Countries |
5.2 |
|
Afghanistan |
53.2 |
|
Pakistan |
64.2 |
|
India |
34.6 |
|
Nepal |
28.4 |
|
Bhutan |
26.8 |
|
Bangladesh |
28.2 |
|
Sri Lanka |
8 |
|
Maldives |
7.3 |
|
Iceland |
1.6 |
|
China |
8.5 |
|
Cuba |
4.2 |
Iceland has the lowest infant mortality
rate of 1.6 in the world. The rate in South Asia is 37.8; this is about 25%
more than the world average. Among countries of the region, poorer countries
like Nepal and Bangladesh have lower rate than economically more prosperous
India and Pakistan. The condition of health services to the poor in Pakistan is
actually very dismal. The infant mortality rate there is even higher than in Afghanistan.
Sri Lanka and Maldives present a qualitative break from the rest of the region
with a very low rate. The poor in these countries enjoy health services better
than even rich people in other countries of the region.
Fig 3A (Infant Mortality Rate)
Fig 3B (Infant Mortality Rate)
Most Gender Unequal Region in the World:
According to the statistical update of 2018, South Asia suffers from the widest
gap between the human development indicators for men and women in the world. On
average, the HDI of women is 5.9 percent lower than men in the world. In South
Asia, it is about three times worse at 16.3 percent. While South Asian men may
be living in conditions of middle to high middle HDI, the region’s women lead a
life of low HDI.
The HDRs define a Gender Development
Index as the ratio of the HDI of women to that of men. A clear regional
variation is seen for this index for countries of South Asia. Sri Lanka and
Maldives have high value for this ratio at 0.938 and 0.939 respectively,
indicating a relatively lower level of discrimination against women. The index
is slightly higher than 0.890 in the case of Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal.
India’s ratio is 0.829, while for Pakistan and Afghanistan it is 0.747 and
0.723 respectively.
Figures 4A and 4B show the changes in
the Gender Development Index in the past 30 years.
Like in the case of infant mortality,
women of economically not so well off countries like Bangladesh and Nepal
suffer less discrimination than relatively more prosperous India and Pakistan.
Discrimination against women has no correlation with religion; the people of
Maldives are almost all Muslim, the majority of Sri Lankans are Buddhists,
Bangladeshis Muslim, and Nepal is mainly Hindu. The only correlate of gender
inequality appears to be geographical direction, with southern countries being
less discriminatory than those in the north. Variations in the degree of social
mobilizations, differences of regional cultures, and the position of women in
family and community life are the determining factors.
Fig 4A (Gender Development Index)
Fig 4B (Gender Development Index)
Gender inequality is closely correlated
to the gainful economic participation and independence of women. The world
average for the earnings of women to men is 58 percent (PPP$ 11,746 to 20,167).
Only in Bhutan and Nepal it is above the world average at 61 percent. In Sri
Lanka it is 40 percent. In Bangladesh, the earnings ratio for women to men is
42 percent. In India it is 25 percent, while in Pakistan it is abysmal at 18
percent.
Figures 5A and 5B show changes in the
percentage of women in the total non-agricultural workforce for different
countries of the region. Bangladesh had the lowest participation of women in
the non-agricultural economy in 1990 at less than 5 percent. However, in the
past three decades women of Bangladesh have increasingly entered the non-household
economy, which has contributed to their overall empowerment. India, Pakistan
and Afghanistan continue with the low participation of women in the non-household
and non-agricultural economy. In contrast, Nepal, despite its very low level of
economic development, has had very high participation rate of women in economic
activities outside the home and agriculture.
Figs 5A Female share of employment in non-agriculture
(% of total non-agricultural employment)
Fig 5B Female share of employment in non-agriculture
(% of total non-agricultural employment)
Conclusion
South Asia remains one of the poorer
regions of the world. However, in the last three decades it has seen the fastest
growth in human development in the world. Barring Afghanistan, the rest of the
region is now ranked in the medium to high human development. Increase in per
capita incomes shown in Figs 2A and 2B, and decrease in infant mortality shown
in Figs 3A and 3B, attest to increasingly better human development in all
countries However, the comparative analysis of disaggregated data for different
countries, and changes in different parameters during the past four decades allows
a deeper appreciation of the state of human development in different countries.
Sri Lanka and Maldives have the highest HDI and per capita incomes. Due to less
unequal distribution of incomes and better health and education indicators, Sri
Lanka’s human development is better than the richer Maldives. A similar
phenomenon is seen in the data for infant mortality and gender development.
More prosperous India and Pakistan perform poorly in these parameters as
compared to the less prosperous Bangladesh and Nepal. These observations
confirm the founding assumption behind the theory of human development.
Economic growth by itself does not imply better lives for average citizens of a
country.
The status-quoist development
literature limits itself largely to the policies and practices of the state and
development agencies. The South Asian scenario of human development also gives
clues to deeper social processes. How much a society cares for its poor, and
what kind of opportunities it provides to its women, are determined by its
political, social and cultural values and history. A country like Pakistan,
which has been riven by religious fundamentalism and violence, is the worst
performer in the region in terms of growth of human development. Countries like Nepal and Bangladesh which saw
popular mobilizations for progressive political changes in the past few decades
are more concerned about providing health care and education to their poor, and
giving more space to their women.
Anuj Goyal is an independent economic
researcher and disability activist. He finished his MA in Economics from Delhi
School of Economics in 2018.
Sanjay Kumar teaches Physics at St
Stephen’s College, Delhi.
[i]
UNDP reports include Iran in the South Asia region when referring to regional
data. However, since Iran’s population is less than five percent of the
population of eight countries forming South Asia, the UNDP regional data can
still be relied upon to give a sufficiently faithful picture of the region as
whole.