Escalating violence in India for the last 8 years.
By Dileep Thekkethil
BENGALURU: A research conducted by the Institute for Economic and Peace has found that close to $340 billion got wasted due to violence in India alone as violence and other crises escalated in a global level, worst since the end of World War II.
The research firm based in Australia has ranked India as the 143rd out of the 162 nations listed in the Global Peace Index. The only respite for India is that Pakistan and Afghanistan are listed below in the list whereas the rest of the South Asian countries fared better.
The report says, “The economic impact of containing and dealing with the consequences of India’s levels of violence was estimated to cost the national economy $341.7 billion in 2014,” adding, “This is equivalent to 4.7% of India’s GDP, or $273 per person.”
The peace index also indicated that since the last eight years India has fallen 6% in the ranking due to the “deteriorations in indicators measuring deaths from external conflict, political terror and perceptions of criminality.”
The report says that the global increase in the expenses caused by violence has a direct link with the increasing civil war and refugee crisis caused by it. Last year alone, $14.3 trillion was spent for curtailing violence in different countries, putting an extra burden on the global economy.
“Large increases in costs have occurred due to deaths from internal conflict, IDPs [internally displaced people] and refugee support, UN peacekeeping and GDP losses from conflict,” said the report.
Iceland is in the top of the list of the most peacekeeping nation and subsequently is the country the spent the least amount for issues related to violence.
Interestingly, leaving out the current civil crisis in Ukraine, Europe remains to be the peaceful continent with low levels of the murder rate. The departure of European forces from the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan is also cited as one of the reasons for the peaceful atmosphere in Europe.
On the other hand, Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, South Sudan and Central Africa remains to be deep down in the list with huge amounts being spent by the UN and other peacekeeping missions on refugees and the injured.
The more startling revelation in the report is about the total deaths in 2014. It says that 180,000 people were killed in 2014 alone, which is a spike in number when compared to the 49,000 four years ago. A total of 1% of world population, which is close to 73 million people, had to abandon their houses due the conflict in their area.
IEP founder and executive chairman Steve Killelea says in the report “The year 2014 was marked by two contradictory trends: on the one hand, many countries in the OECD achieved historic levels of peace while on the other, strife-torn nations, especially in the Middle East, became more violent.”
A total of 81 nations registered decrease in violence but on the other hand 78 nations saw an increase in that respect.
The number of countries affected by terrorism raised from 60 to 69 in the year 2014 and Nigeria is the second most deadly country in the world only next to Iraq which is the worst country affected by violence caused by terrorist outfits.