Mera Bhaarat Mahaan?GDP says yes, B-HEI says no
Saurabh Gupta /
Why does this cartoon anger Indians? As the fifth largest and fastest-growing trillion-dollar economy in the world, we want the world’s respect. We feel that we have been ridiculed for too long and it’s time for us to take our rightful place in the world as “Vishwa Guru”. But have we truly arrived as a nation?
As a design & innovation professional leading countless digital transformations over the last 20 years in India & abroad, I have first-hand experience of what happens when transformation initiatives are not linked to the right success metrics. In fact, the design & innovation fields are notorious for being hard to quantify in terms of real impact. This aspect of my profession bothered me so much that I made it my personal mission to make the design & innovation landscape more outcome-oriented. Doing this over and over, has conditioned me not to take grandiose feel good statements about transformation too seriously and focus on tangible metrics instead as the ultimate proof of success.
So, I couldn’t help but apply the same outcome-oriented lens to India. How are we measuring our transformation as a nation? No doubt, our GDP growth has been nothing short of amazing and something every Indian should be very proud of. However is GDP a good way to measure our overall quality of life? What other factors contribute to creating a net positive experience of living and working in India?
I don’t think GDP provides the full picture of how we are doing as a country. I would like to propose a new acronym for measuring India’s progress: B-HEI. From the perspective of an average Indian, I think this new 4-letter acronym representing Business, Hunger, Environment & Innovation provides a more holistic assessment of where we are as a country and what we need to focus on improving.
So, how are we doing on these four variables?
1. Business
We have come a long way from the days of the license raj but are Indian businesses still shackled by too much red tape? Complexity in judiciary, taxation, business, and governance hinders progress and breeds confusion. India is 63rd (out of 190 nations) in World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Ranking 2020. Our rank here is still surprisingly low for a country that has the 5th largest economy in the world.
2. Hunger
India ranks a shocking 111 out of a total of 125 countries in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2023. India’s ranking is based on a Global Hunger Index score of 28.7 on a 100-point scale where 0 is the best score (no hunger) and 100 is the worst. This categorises India’s severity of hunger as “serious”. The GHI score is based on a formula which combines four indicators that together capture the multi-dimensional nature of hunger, including under-nourishment, child stunting, child wasting, and child mortality.
Our extremely low ranking on the hunger index indicates that when it comes to hunger, GDP per capita matters more than GDP. As of 2023, India’s GDP per capita was approximately $2,485 USD. This places India at the 141st position globally in terms of nominal GDP per capita. To put this into perspective, Bangladesh’s GDP per capita at $2,529 USD is higher than India’s. China’s GDP per capita at $12,614 USD is approximately five times higher than India. This highlights our ongoing challenges in income distribution and in fulfilling some of the most fundamental needs of our large population base.
3. Environment
What is the environmental cost of our economic progress? Does it matter what our GDP is if we are choking on toxic air? 39 of 50 most polluted cities in the world are in India. Overall, India ranks an abysmal 176th out of 180 countries in its efforts to address environmental challenges, according to the 2024 Environmental Performance Index (EPI).
4. Innovation
Is our economic growth built on cutting edge innovation or cheap labour? India retains 40th rank out of 132 economies in the Global Innovation Index 2023 rankings published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). India’s Global Innovation Index ranking improved from 81 in 2015 to 46 in 2022. We have improved a lot here, but still have a long way to go to compete with the likes of China, which is ranked 12th globally.
Overall
If the experience of living in India was graded on a marksheet, it would look like this…
| Metric | India Rank | Grade | |
|---|---|---|---|
| GDP | Gross Domestic Product: ranks 195 countries | #5 China Rank #2 |
A+ |
| B-HEI | Ease of Doing Business: ranks 190 countries | #63 China Rank #31 |
C |
| Global Hunger Index: ranks 125 countries | #111 China Rank #20 |
D | |
| Environmental Performance Index: ranks 180 countries | #176 China Rank #156 |
D | |
| Global Innovation Index: ranks 132 countries | #40 China Rank #12 |
B | |
Outstanding performance on one metric but performing poorly in everything else. I’m sure in the coming years we will improve substantially on the B-HEI but until then (despite being the world’s 5th largest economy) we are still going to be seen as a backbencher. Over the next ten years, India should aim to break into the top ten ranking in Innovation, Business, Hunger & Environment. Only then can we truly achieve the dream of making India a developed nation by 2047.
