India’s continuing progress in the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) rankings is a healthy sign, but the fact it remains in the “medium” grouping, just one rung above countries with “low human development”, is a reality check.
According to the report titled “A Matter of Choice: People and Possibilities in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”, released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) this week, India ranks 130 out of 193 countries in 2023. It moved up from 133 in 2022, bettering its HDI value from 0.676 to 0.685 and inching closer to the benchmark for high human development (HDI value of 0.700). India’s steady performance is underscored by the report’s observation that since 1990 its HDI value has risen by over 53%, which is better than the global as well as South Asian averages and was “fuelled by economic growth and targeted social protection and welfare programmes”.
The HDI is a composite index that measures achievement in three basic dimensions of human development — a long and healthy life, access to knowledge, and a decent standard of living. India’s improved ranking reflects its performance in these metrics. Life expectancy rose from 67.7 years in 2022 to 72 years in 2023 — it was 58.6 years back in 1990 when the UNDP published its first HDI report. Both expected and average years of schooling also saw marginal increases, attributable to initiatives such as Right to Education Act and the National Education Policy 2020. And the per capita gross national income also went up from $6,951 to $9,047 (on 2021 purchasing power parity). But more on that later.
The report noted that besides economic growth, government investments in programmes such as the national rural employment guarantee scheme, Jan Dhan Yojana, and digital inclusion have helped, with 135 million Indians lifted out of multidimensional poverty during 2015-2021. Improvements in these areas are welcome after the setbacks of the pandemic years. Yet, in its immediate neighbourhood India lags behind Bhutan (127th), Sri Lanka — well ahead at 89th place despite a crippling economic crisis — and China (78th). India is at par with Bangladesh, while only Nepal (145th), Myanmar (150th), and Pakistan (168th) fare worse.
Even though it does not make any correlation between human development and gross domestic product, as it relies on multiple metrics, the UNDP’s HDI report may appear to be skewed towards relatively small and rich nations with homogenous populations. For example, the top five nations are Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, and Germany. Nevertheless, it is a useful tool for self-evaluation and tracking progress over time for a developing economy. In India’s case, regional disparities too must be considered in any assessments. For instance, southern states perform better in terms of HDI than their northern counterparts.
But as the 2023 report shows, the most pressing challenge for India is inequality which brought down the country’s HDI value by 30.7% — among the highest losses in the region, with significant income and gender disparities. Previous studies have also reported growing inequality in India. According to a 2024 working paper by the World Inequality Lab, inequality has shot up since the early 2000s, with the top 1% of India’s population cornering 22.6% of the income and 40.1% of the wealth as of 2022-23. It also said, “Between 2014-15 and 2022-23, the rise of top-end inequality has been particularly pronounced in terms of wealth concentration.”
Along with the focus on health, education, and poverty elimination, policymakers must therefore target growth that is accompanied by improved incomes for the majority. At the same time, steps taken to address gender imbalance must not end up being merely tokenistic but lead to transformation. A case in point is the Women’s Reservation Bill which mandates one-third quota of legislative seats to be filled by women.
While the HDI report flagged the slowest progress globally in 35 years, it also addressed how artificial intelligence (AI) could impact jobs and aid human development. Encouragingly, it identified India as a rising AI powerhouse with the highest self-reported AI skills penetration and growing domestic retention of talent.
The report rightly accords the importance that AI deserves today, while cautioning that “the new high-choice information environment, engendered by the digitalisation of information, poses a serious threat to the epistemic strengths of democracy”. Knowledge and its production can have a direct effect on our lives and well-being. For instance, we have to look no further than the damaging potential of disinformation — peddled both on social media and by sections of mainstream media — amid the hostilities between India and Pakistan in the last few days. Thus, guardrails have to be put in place so that AI is not abused and it helps narrow, rather than widen, inequalities further.
While longevity, education, and income were widely accepted yardsticks in 1990, the UNDP has heeded emerging challenges. For example, in 2020 it introduced a new metric, planetary pressures-adjusted HDI, which takes into consideration environmental pressures, specifically carbon dioxide emissions and material footprint.
It’s also a message for our policymakers that in gauging human development and well-being they have to take note of as well as look beyond the HDI pecking order.