Dr John Mohan Razu
Abraham Lincoln long ago said that “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”What made him to say? He might have seen there werepoliticians and bureaucrats whotended to think that all the people can be fooled all the time. His quote is more relevant now. We live in a world of blatant lies, fake news and false narratives; masses tend to believe whatever the politicians and bureaucrats say. Even the media except a few do fall in the same category.
By the time we cross-check what they said, they swiftly move on to other issuesby totally side-lining. Nowadays politicians and public by and large go by populistic rhetoric. Tall claims and promises that dominate the narratives. Those who govern us take the people to unbelievable heights, but in reality, nothing seems to be happening. There are two India—one for the rich and the other for the poor.The super-rich and the powerful have absolute control over people and natural resources that determines production-distribution and consumption.
India is facing huge problems to admit coronavirus cases due to lack of beds which is not surprising at all, while considering the fact that there are only 12 countries which figures worse than Indian when it comes to bed availability. India has just five beds for 10,000 people. Recently released Human Development Report 2020 shows that out of 167 countries, India ranks 156th on bed availability.In comparison, 76 countries have fewer doctors per 10,000 population than India; among these are several countries with vastly better health indices.
Thailand and Vietnam have marginally fewer doctors than India, 8.1 and 8.3 doctors per 10,000 respectively as compared to 8.6 doctors per 10,000 population in India. Word Bank data shows that it has about 20 beds per 10,000. Vietnam and Thailand handle the Covid pandemic better than not just India but some of the most developed countries, they also have a higher life expectancy of 75.4 and 77.2 years respectively. India’s life expectancy is 69.7 years. Among the countries with a worse bed to population ratio than India are Uganda, Senegal, Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Nepal and Guatemala.
Bangladesh slightly figures above than India, with 8 beds per 10,000 population, though it has only 5.8 doctors per 10,000 population. And yet, Bangladesh has a higher life expectancy of 72.6. Countries in the “very high human development” category typically have about 25 to 50 doctors per 10,000 and 25-35 beds per 10,000. In the next category of high human development countries, the availability of beds ranges from 10-45 per 10,000 and the availability of doctors’ ranges from 15 to 40 per 10,000. There are several in this group who a lower doctor population ration than India, but none which have few beds per 10,000.
Most of the countries in the medium human development group to which India belongs have fewer doctors per 10,000 population. But only two, Nepal (3) and Guatemala (4), have lower bed availability than India.The number of beds per 10,000 is used as an indicator of health infrastructure in general and the poor bed availability points to India’s failure to expand its health infrastructure in keep with the growth in population. Many do not want to work in remote areas because of poor infrastructure facilities. With such poor health facility, many are wondering how could COVID-19 vaccine be administered to a vast populace spread across? As the Supreme Court of India point out “Right to health includes affordable treatment”.
In another facet, India ranked 111th out of 162 countries in the Human Freedom Index 2020 report released by Cato Institute, plummeting 17 spots from its position in the last index. India registered a score of 6.43, which is lower than the average human freedom rating of 6.93 for the 162 countries which were rated by the index. Personal freedom in India was given a score of 6.30 by the report, while economic freedom was rated 6.56. India ranks above neighbours Pakistan (140), Bangladesh (139) and China (129), but below Bhutan (108), Sri Lanka (94) and Nepal (92).
The countries that ranked in the top 10 are New Zealand, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Denmark, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Estonia, and Germany and Sweden (tied up in the 9th place. While Japan, UK and the US ranked 11th and other two countries tied in 17th position respectively. On the other extreme, Syria was ranked the worst followed by Sudan, Venezuela, Yemen and Iran. The index is calculated using 76 “distinct indicators of personal and economic freedom” in areas such as rule of law, security and safety, religion, legal system and property right and access to sound money.
Only 15 per cent of the world’s population lives in the top quartile of countries of countries in the HFI, and 34 per cent live in the bottom quartile. The gap in human freedom between the freest and the least free countries has widened since 2008, increasing by 6 per cent when comparing the top and bottom of 10 per cent of nation in HFI. The report added that the lowest levels of freedom are in the Middle East, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia. Women-specific freedoms are weakest and least protected in the Middle-East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia. Countries in the top quartile of freedom enjoy relatively higher average per capita income ($50,340) than those in other quartiles. The average per capita income in the least free quartile is $7,720.
India’s poverty and hunger have worsened manifesting malnutrition of children. In the year 2020, during the pandemic 27 per cent went to bed without eating. Hunger index show that even the developed states did not show any improvement. Staggering cut in mid-day meals that escalated mal-nutrition of children especially many state governments stopped giving eggs. India’s figures down the line among other countries. India’s hunger is worsening because ofchronic inter-generational poverty. Nutritional value of food is falling at appalling levels.
If we take other facets, the real India manifests more or less similar projections. India’s human development and other indices are not encouraging. Millions of Indians live in such miserable state and pulling on their lives without any joy and future prospect. When we use rhetoric such as building new India and so on, first and the foremost we need to set right the “Other India”, then only New India will become a reality. A country that shows lowest indices on all fronts fails miserably on all counts and India is certainly one among them.
