The Indian government’s think tank, National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog, has recently challenged the methodology employed by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) in compiling its annual Global Terrorism Index (GTI). According to the GTI 2019, India is the seventh worst terrorism affected country, a step up from the eighth position it occupied the previous year. The NITI Aayog’s investigation into this ranking was part of a broader exercise to assess various global indices’ relevance and applicability to driving reforms and growth within the country.
Understanding the Global Terrorism Index
Australia-based IEP prepares the GTI, which is grounded on four critical parameters: the number of terrorist incidents per year, fatalities and injuries inflicted by terrorists each year, and total property damage caused by acts of terrorism annually. The GTI’s scores are not only used in their capacity but also contribute to other rankings such as the Global Peace Index, World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness and Global Competitiveness Indices, and Safe Cities Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
The Rankings and Their Significance
In the latest GTI, countries reported to be more severely affected by terrorism than India were Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Syria, Pakistan, and Somalia, while nations like Congo, South Sudan, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Palestine and Lebanon fared better. This ranking holds significance as global indices can impact investment opportunities and other international prospects for a country.
Highlights and Criticisms of the NITI Aayog Report
While examining the GTI, NITI Aayog questioned the transparency of IEP’s funding resources and its management, outlining how the small team of 24 full-time staff members and 6 volunteers managed to collect, analyse and disseminate relevant data for 163 countries annually.
The NITI Aayog report highlighted the GTI’s reliance on unclassified media reports for data, criticizing its lack of engagement with governments to verify and further classify this information. It also noted ambiguity arising from the absence of a universally accepted definition of terrorism. For instance, the GTI’s definition of mass shootings excludes ‘lone wolf’ attacks and attempts thwarted by security and intelligence agencies.
Questioning GTI’s Relevance for Policymakers
The NITI Aayog findings concluded that due to methodological shortcomings, the GTI’s relevance for policymakers remains low, especially considering the index does not involve government bodies in data collection or analysis. Moreover, it cannot aid in understanding or mitigating the challenges posed by domestic and cross-border terrorism. This scrutiny of global indices like the GTI is crucial for India to better understand their scope, limitations, and relevance to the nation’s growth and reform trajectory.