Will Modi, Jaitley mourn India’s 21-place drop in Gender gap index?

On November 1, World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking for the year starting 2018 was released in which India was shown at the 100th position out of the 190 countries assessed this year. In 2017, India’s rank was 130th, which was exactly the same rank as in the previous year (2016). So a 30-position jump was an occasion for celebration.

The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley quickly convened a press conference and went on to declare that “this is the highest jump any country has made in World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking”.

But look at the contrasting scenario: just a day later, the World Economic Forum released its annual Global Gender Gap Index for the year 2017. It showed that India had been ranked at 108th out of a total of 144 countries taken up for assessment. What was galling was that India slipped 21 places from its 2016 position when it was ranked 87th?

A 30-position jump in the Ease of Doing Business brought the Prime Minister and Finance Minister on their feet; they came out with public statements saying that India would do much better next year. But with a 21-position fall in the Gender Gap ranking, neither the Prime Minister nor anyone from the Government of India came out expressing concern and vowing to work to improve the situation next year.

Had the Ease of Doing Business Report not shown India in a relatively good light the previous day, it is quite possible that the representative of the Government of India would have dismissed the Gender Gap Report as “western propaganda” to belittle India.

Remember, last year around this time, when the Ease of Doing Business Report was released and India remained stuck at 130th position, the Government of India had made its displeasure clear saying that the World Bank did not capture the reforms undertaken by Centre and the states.

As a matter of fact, India’s 108th position in a list of 144 countries is somewhat deceptive; the fact is that on some of the crucial parameters, India is right at the bottom. Take, for example, the key indicator of health and survival. India holds a lowly 141st rank; India has the ignominy of being among the bottom four countries.

In the Economic Participation and Opportunity category, India again occupies a dismal 139th position; it is among the bottom six. What is further galling is that India’s position has worsened on this indicator, compared to last year when it was ranked 136th.

The World Economic Forum said that India’s gender gap is accentuated by its twin ills: the low participation of women in the economy (136th rank out of the total 144 countries) and low wages for those who have the employment opportunity (again 136th rank).

If in some of the key categories, India has an abysmal ranking such as 136th and 139th, then how does it get an overall ranking of 108 which saves India from the humiliation of being in the bottom five countries? The salvaging factor for India is that India scores very high in the Political Empowerment category. India’s 15th rank may be a bit misleading as the proportion of women in Indian legislatures is a lowly 11 per cent. But India continues to benefit from having a woman prime minister for over a decade and a half. So, Indira Gandhi has been the saving grace for India all these years.

But the Gender Gap Index report gives the necessary warning: “With more than 50 years having passed since the inauguration of the nation’s first female prime minister in 1966, maintaining its global top 20 ranking on the political empowerment sub-index will require India to make progress on this dimension with a new generation of female political leadership.”

Unfortunately, the Narendra Modi government has not been up to the task. As a matter of fact, even in the political empowerment category, India’s position slipped from ninth in 2016 to 15th in 2017 (Perhaps Nirmala Sitharaman’s rise on the political ladder as India’s first full-time woman defence minister would improve India’s standing next year)!

The all-round deterioration in the status of women in 2017 compared to 2016, as brought out in the World Economic Forum report, is a matter of serious concern. The Modi government would do well to dwell on it and take expeditious remedial measures, or else India’s development story would remain half-baked.