There exists a stark difference between the rates of the biological and socio-cultural evolution of humans. Scientists believe that we are still evolving and adapting, but not any serious breakthrough has occurred for a long time. On the other hand, our socio-cultural evolution has gone faster over time.
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Nearly 10,000 years ago, we developed ourselves to perform agriculture and lead a sedentary lifestyle. And 7,000 years ago, we learnt to ‘write’ which historians believe is the most important feature of a ‘civilized’ society. Of course, not all the communities were on the same page.
The period before we learnt to write (proto-history) is generally associated with the Stone Age. It was a major breakthrough in our socio-cultural evolution to learn to use such tools, as not many species enjoy this prerogative.
The first major civilizations appeared with the dawn of the Bronze Age, which again drew us to a whole new adventure of metallurgy. Iron Age helped us clear the dense forest for settlements across the valleys and fertile plains.
We also established social institutions such as family, kinship, and marriage to regulate our members. Major political institutions such as state, empires, army, and democracy also bloomed with time. To regulate the economy, we created taxation and currency; and to augment them, we established the universities, urban centres, and transport vehicles.
During medieval times, humans explored new landscapes and inhabited new avenues. Not just land, but the ocean also became a centre of power. Some of the architecture crafted in this era still awes its viewers with the same intensity. New technologies and inventions led humankind to unfathomable distances.
Modern times came with some stellar changes in our timeline. The Industrial Revolution increased our potential to the skies and made human capabilities unbound. Today our space probes have crossed the boundaries of the solar system and we are aspiring to develop a “Type 2” civilization, by exploring the resources of our solar system. Nanotechnology has made big tasks appear small, and Artificial Intelligence is doing the jobs that were impossible for the humans themselves some centuries ago.
Researchers are trying to play with the laws of nature, and artificially creating, evolving, and augmenting the organisms to our benefit. But again, our natural biological evolution seems to be so little and trivial vis-a-vis this sea change of socio-cultural revolution. This poses a serious question that is our natural biological evolution being able to keep up with our socio-cultural revolution or vice versa?
Malthus held that the resources grow arithmetically and population exponentially. A similar difference seems to be the case with the evolutions.
Technological Paradox
Everything comes with a cost, and so does the technology. There are several paradoxes created by technology. Although it is supposed to make our lives easier, it also makes them tougher in various ways.
Learning to use new technology is one of them, which becomes even more serious in the case of less advantaged groups. Old people often struggle to adapt to the new technologies coming in every day. Socially or economically disadvantaged groups often lack the means to access, avail, and afford such technologies, which is highlighted by the lockdown and online education.
What seems most paradoxical is that we have created these technologies to save our time, energy, and resources; but on the contrary, these technologies have increased the wastage of the same!
If technology would have saved time since the Industrial Revolution, today we would have been sitting idle! In the modern urban lifestyle, one saves time through tech and then goes to the gym to work out in the saved timeslot. The net time saved remains zero.
Earlier, it was not essential to visit gyms because our lifestyles were such. Today, our biological and socio-cultural evolutions are not synchronised. Our body has almost the same needs which it used to have a millennium ago, but our lifestyles today do not allow us to avail of those needs.
Consequently, lifestyle diseases have increased manifold nowadays. As we know, certain things are a good servant but a bad master. Henceforth, for our very own benefit, we need to stay closer to nature.
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- In the Large States category (overall), Chhattisgarh ranks 1st, followed by Odisha and Telangana, whereas, towards the bottom are Maharashtra at 16th, Assam at 17th and Gujarat at 18th. Gujarat is one State that has seen startling performance ranking 5th in the PAI 2021 Index outperforming traditionally good performing States like Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, but ranks last in terms of Delta
- In the Small States category (overall), Nagaland tops, followed by Mizoram and Tripura. Towards the tail end of the overall Delta ranking is Uttarakhand (9th), Arunachal Pradesh (10th) and Meghalaya (11th). Nagaland despite being a poor performer in the PAI 2021 Index has come out to be the top performer in Delta, similarly, Mizoram’s performance in Delta is also reflected in it’s ranking in the PAI 2021 Index
- In terms of Equity, in the Large States category, Chhattisgarh has the best Delta rate on Equity indicators, this is also reflected in the performance of Chhattisgarh in the Equity Pillar where it ranks 4th. Following Chhattisgarh is Odisha ranking 2nd in Delta-Equity ranking, but ranks 17th in the Equity Pillar of PAI 2021. Telangana ranks 3rd in Delta-Equity ranking even though it is not a top performer in this Pillar in the overall PAI 2021 Index. Jharkhand (16th), Uttar Pradesh (17th) and Assam (18th) rank at the bottom with Uttar Pradesh’s performance in line with the PAI 2021 Index
- Odisha and Nagaland have shown the best year-on-year improvement under 12 Key Development indicators.
- In the 60:40 division States, the top three performers are Kerala, Goa and Tamil Nadu and, the bottom three performers are Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar.
- In the 90:10 division States, the top three performers were Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Mizoram; and, the bottom three performers are Manipur, Assam and Meghalaya.
- Among the 60:40 division States, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are the top three performers and Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Delhi appear as the bottom three performers.
- Among the 90:10 division States, the top three performers are Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland; and, the bottom three performers are Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh
- Among the 60:40 division States, Goa, West Bengal and Delhi appear as the top three performers and Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Bihar appear as the bottom three performers.
- Among the 90:10 division States, Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh and Tripura were the top three performers and Jammu & Kashmir, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh were the bottom three performers
- West Bengal, Bihar and Tamil Nadu were the top three States amongst the 60:40 division States; while Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan appeared as the bottom three performers
- In the case of 90:10 division States, Mizoram, Assam and Tripura were the top three performers and Nagaland, Jammu & Kashmir and Uttarakhand featured as the bottom three
- Among the 60:40 division States, the top three performers are Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa and the bottom three performers are Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Goa
- In the 90:10 division States, the top three performers are Mizoram, Sikkim and Nagaland and the bottom three performers are Manipur and Assam
In a diverse country like India, where each State is socially, culturally, economically, and politically distinct, measuring Governance becomes increasingly tricky. The Public Affairs Index (PAI 2021) is a scientifically rigorous, data-based framework that measures the quality of governance at the Sub-national level and ranks the States and Union Territories (UTs) of India on a Composite Index (CI).
States are classified into two categories – Large and Small – using population as the criteria.
In PAI 2021, PAC defined three significant pillars that embody Governance – Growth, Equity, and Sustainability. Each of the three Pillars is circumscribed by five governance praxis Themes.
The themes include – Voice and Accountability, Government Effectiveness, Rule of Law, Regulatory Quality and Control of Corruption.
At the bottom of the pyramid, 43 component indicators are mapped to 14 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are relevant to the States and UTs.
This forms the foundation of the conceptual framework of PAI 2021. The choice of the 43 indicators that go into the calculation of the CI were dictated by the objective of uncovering the complexity and multidimensional character of development governance
The Equity Principle
The Equity Pillar of the PAI 2021 Index analyses the inclusiveness impact at the Sub-national level in the country; inclusiveness in terms of the welfare of a society that depends primarily on establishing that all people feel that they have a say in the governance and are not excluded from the mainstream policy framework.
This requires all individuals and communities, but particularly the most vulnerable, to have an opportunity to improve or maintain their wellbeing. This chapter of PAI 2021 reflects the performance of States and UTs during the pandemic and questions the governance infrastructure in the country, analysing the effectiveness of schemes and the general livelihood of the people in terms of Equity.
Growth and its Discontents
Growth in its multidimensional form encompasses the essence of access to and the availability and optimal utilisation of resources. By resources, PAI 2021 refer to human resources, infrastructure and the budgetary allocations. Capacity building of an economy cannot take place if all the key players of growth do not drive development. The multiplier effects of better health care, improved educational outcomes, increased capital accumulation and lower unemployment levels contribute magnificently in the growth and development of the States.
The Pursuit Of Sustainability
The Sustainability Pillar analyses the access to and usage of resources that has an impact on environment, economy and humankind. The Pillar subsumes two themes and uses seven indicators to measure the effectiveness of government efforts with regards to Sustainability.
The Curious Case Of The Delta
The Delta Analysis presents the results on the State performance on year-on-year improvement. The rankings are measured as the Delta value over the last five to 10 years of data available for 12 Key Development Indicators (KDI). In PAI 2021, 12 indicators across the three Pillars of Equity (five indicators), Growth (five indicators) and Sustainability (two indicators). These KDIs are the outcome indicators crucial to assess Human Development. The Performance in the Delta Analysis is then compared to the Overall PAI 2021 Index.
Key Findings:-
In the Scheme of Things
The Scheme Analysis adds an additional dimension to ranking of the States on their governance. It attempts to complement the Governance Model by trying to understand the developmental activities undertaken by State Governments in the form of schemes. It also tries to understand whether better performance of States in schemes reflect in better governance.
The Centrally Sponsored schemes that were analysed are National Health Mission (NHM), Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services scheme (ICDS), Mahatma Gandh National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SmSA) and MidDay Meal Scheme (MDMS).
National Health Mission (NHM)
INTEGRATED CHILD DEVELOPMENT SERVICES (ICDS)
MID- DAY MEAL SCHEME (MDMS)
SAMAGRA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN (SMSA)
MAHATMA GANDHI NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE SCHEME (MGNREGS)