Human Development Across Socio-religious Groups in India

The Human Development Index (HDI) provided at the national level is mostly useful for international comparisons. From the policy angle, HDI can suggest different policy options if they are disaggregated at sub-national and subgroup levels, which in turn helps policymakers set sub-national and subgroup development priorities. Thus, the current research addresses whether achievement in human development differs across socio-religious groups, whether there is a variation in human development at the sub-national level, to what extent sub-national HDI differ across socio-religious groups, and whether there is a link between development and divergence in human development performance across socio-religious groups. Data for the current study are drawn from the National Sample Survey’s (NSS) Multiple Indicator Survey (MIS [2020–2021]) and the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019–2021) (NFHS-5). The total number of households used for this study is 76,409 from MIS and 6.37 lakh from NFHS-5. Using the HDI method, this study first estimates the index separately for education, health, living standard and livelihood opportunities among socio-religious groups, followed by the overall HDI. The results show that in all four indices, scheduled tribe (ST), schedule caste (SC) and Muslim community’s performance are low compared to all other socio-religious categories. Further, the overall HDI result confirms that these communities exhibit notably poor HDI scores. In most cases, except Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Delhi states, the rest of the states expose the poor conditions of HDI among these communities. Therefore, efforts should be made to replicate successful models observed in states like Kerala and Delhi, where certain socio-religious groups have shown higher HDI scores, indicating positive outcomes from existing policies or interventions.