Diversity & development

For reasons that appeal to many people, the UN and its various instrumentalities have always chosen to focus on "development" as the desirable goal, rather than "mere" economic growth, as measured by GDP and per capita incomes.

To some extent, this has been the result of domestic governments, especially those with a poor track record in economic performance, seeking alibis for their failures. But these stratagems have a way of backfiring and, over a period of time, the idea of "human" development has become the strongest indictment of such governments.

India is one of the major accused which, in spite of its shrill insistence over the last five decades on human development, has achieved little economic growth, and even less human development.

Little wonder, the latest Human Development Report (HDR) still ranks India at a lowly 127 in terms of the Human Development Index (HDI), which is a composite measure of achievement in some basic dimensions such as life expectancy, school enrolment, literacy and income.

India's index value rose to 0.595 in 2002 from 0.579 in 2000 "" which means others improved faster. The country has improved on the poverty front and has moved up five notches to 48 this year in a list of 95 developing countries.

By any measure this is a gigantic failure, for which there can be no excuses. The failure has been at so many levels that it will take another generation to set things right "" provided we begin to get our act together right away. Of that, there seems little prospect.

The theme of this year's HDR revolves around "Cultural liberty in today's diverse world" and advocates an approach that respects and promotes diversity while keeping countries open to "global flows of capital, goods and people".

Linear programmers will recognise this as a typically sub-optimal optimisation programme in which there are so many constraints that the eventual outcome is unsatisfactory on all counts. While no one can quarrel with the notion of cultural diversity, and the need to maintain it for the same reasons as ecological diversity, it must be borne in mind that the notion has the potential to become yet another excuse for poor economic growth.

In India, particularly, there will always be groups that will argue that an insistence on sensible economic laws abridge cultural diversity! Politicians, who are the root cause of India's abysmal performance, will be only too ready to grasp at straws.

One little puzzle here is China: without any of the prerequisites that the UNDP admires, it has still managed a good HDI. Someone must explain this.

If one looks back over the last decade, it is clear that what was once a good idea has now become a rather contrived affair. The pressure to reduce everything to a language that is acceptable to all has also contributed to this process.

Since this is how good ideas get diluted, it may not be a bad idea for the UNDP to set up a committee to review the HDI report. In particular, it needs to restrict itself to economics and not stray into sociology and politics.

The purpose of such a restriction is simple: clear measurability should be the criterion for policy prescriptions, not piety.