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MUMBAI: The recent Maoist violence in Bastar, which left 28 people dead, is no aberration. The Global Peace Index (GPI) 2013, which was released on Tuesday, has ranked India among the 25 least peaceful nations to live in. The country was placed 141 among 162 nations, having lost more than two lives a day — or a staggering 799 persons — to internal conflicts in 2012.

Giving India company at the bottom of the heap are countries like Pakistan, Iraq, South Sudan and Afghanistan, which are traditionally perceived to be more violence-ridden. Iceland emerged as 2012’s most peaceful country in the index and the Central African Republic the least. Ironically, India has improved on its 2011 rank by three notches.

India’s poor ranking in 2012 was attributed to the high number of internal and external conflicts, ease of access to small and medium weapons and the political terror scale, as in the case of conflict-ridden Kashmir, said the report’s author Steve Killelea, of the Institute for Economics and Peace, a global think tank which works on the relationship between economics, business and peace.

Killelea observed more populous countries were less peaceful and it was possible that conflicts in large countries like India were more difficult to manage.

On the positive side, India has reduced its number of deaths from internal conflicts as well as improved the perception of criminality among its citizens, which explains the bettering of its overall rank. "For the first time since 1994, the total number of fatalities linked to conflict within India dropped below four figures, with a notable decline in deaths related to Islamist terrorism, insurgency in J&K and fatalities associated with Maoist insurgency across the Red Belt," stated the report. However, it also refers to border skirmishes between India and its neighbours requiring a large military force and increased defence expenditure, which drags India’s overall score down.
The world itself has grown less peaceful, with a 5% decline in scores over the last six years. It was found that more countries deteriorated in peace (110) in 2012 as compared to those which grew more peaceful (48) since 2008. "The findings of this year’s index support the prevailing trend of the last six years, namely: a continuing shift away from nations taking up arms against one another and towards more organised internal conflicts. A key factor associated with this is that the peace gap between countries under authoritarian regimes and the rest of the world is becoming larger," said Killelea. This is illustrated by the civil war in Syria — which saw the greatest drop in its peacefulness among the nations analyzed — as well as the climate of political instability in the Middle East.