ON JUNE 25, 2026, the Human Rights Measurement Initiative (‘HRMI’) released its data tracking the human rights performance of 212 countries across the world with nearly 141 countries furnishing the requisite data either completely or partially. The countries were scored on three categories of Human Rights with the first being ‘Quality of Life’ comprising the rights to education, food, health, housing and work; followed by ‘Safety from the State’ which comprised the right to freedom from arbitrary arrest, forced disappearance, death penalty, torture and ill treatment, extrajudicial execution and lastly ‘Empowerment’ which comprised the rights to assembly and association, opinion and expression, participation in government, religion and belief. The countries were distinctly divided on the basis of their recognition as a High Income, Low and Middle Income country.
‘People from particular castes, work or descent most vulnerable to have right to education violated’
India which comes under the category of Low and Middle Income Countries with a population of 1450. 9 million has scored an overall 74.2 percent in the category of ‘Quality of Life’ under the benchmark of ‘Income Adjusted’ with the benchmark denoting the extent to which a particular country is performing ably when viewed vis -a-vis the country’s income level (a country can score a 100 percent if its resources are utilised in a manner which is most efficient).
India’s performance on Quality of Life was marked as ‘close to average’ in comparison to other South Asian Countries and it is also termed the same when compared with the benchmark of ‘best in the world’. Of the categories of rights identified and scored individually within the broader head of Quality of Life , India scored the lowest in right to food with a staggering 59.1 percent and highest in right to health with an astounding 84.7 percent. The Right to education exercised by females and males is nearly similar with 75.1 percent and 75.2 percent respectively.
India’s performance on Quality of Life was marked as ‘close to average’ in comparison to other South Asian Countries.
A whopping majority of human rights experts found that in India people from particular castes, work or descent especially the members from the Dalit, Bahujan ,Adivasi communities and the Muslim community faced the highest risk of having their right to education, housing and work violated whilst Indians who are homeless were found to be most likely to get their right to food violated. People from indigenous communities were most prone to get their right to health violated.
‘Adivasis, young Muslims, refugees among most susceptible to State enforced disappearance’
In the category of Safety from the State, India scored an overall 4.8 out of 10 which was termed as ‘worse than average’ in comparison to other South Asian countries. Further, in relation to to the rights comprising this category, India scored abysmally low with a 2.6 out of 10 in the ‘Right to Freedom from Torture and ill treatment’ category and a 3.5 out of 10 in the ‘Right to Freedom from Arbitrary arrest’ category, which is in stark contrast with its perfect score of 10 in the category of ‘Right to freedom from Death Penalty’. Additionally India scored a 4.2 and 5.4 out of 10 respectively in the categories of Right to freedom from Extrajudicial Execution and Forced disappearance.
Human rights experts identified the people from particular castes, work or descent , people with particular religious beliefs or practices, human rights advocates and journalists as the foremost category of people who run the highest risk of having their safety from the state violated. Additionally when the human rights experts were asked to pinpoint on specific set of people or communities who are more susceptible to getting their right to freedom from arbitrary arrests and detention violated, they identified the following groups: people from Dalit and Bahujan Communities, those from Adivasi communities, particularly their leaders, workers’ rights advocates living in Chattisgarh and the tribal belt of India, Christians (particularly the Christian Pastors), Bengali speaking Muslims and the Muslim Men who are activists, human rights defenders , journalists and academics.
In the category of ‘Right to freedom from forced disappearance;, the experts placed the people from Adivasi communities, young Muslims, refugees (particularly the Rohingya and Bengali- speaking Muslims), and people in areas with high military presence going through active conflict (particularly in Manipur) as the category of people most susceptible to forced disappearance by government agents. Despite a near perfect score in the category of ‘Right to freedom from the death penalty’, the experts did note that people from Dalit and Adivasi communities and Muslims were most vulnerable to death penalty executions by the governments.
The people from the tribal communities involved in peaceful protests (especially against mining corporations) and Muslims accused of terrorism and cow slaughter topped the set of people vulnerable to extrajudicial killing by government agents. Official data indicated that over 100 custodial deaths occurred in police or judicial custody between 2025 and 2026. The human rights experts identified people from disadvantaged social or economic backgrounds, particularly the people from Dalit, Adivasi,De-Notified Tribes and Nomadic Tribes (who used to be criminalised under the colonial regime by virtue of the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871) and Muslim communities with low social or economic status as the set of people most vulnerable to torture and ill- treatment by the government agents .
Additionally, 67 percent of survey respondents agreed that Muslim, Christian and Scheduled Tribe communities ran the highest risk of getting their rights under the category of ‘Safety from the State’ being violated. 74 percent of the respondents surveyed believed that Indian Muslims, followed by 59 percent terming Christians, as the religious communities that were particularly prone to their rights being violated.
The people from the tribal communities involved in peaceful protests (especially against mining corporations) and Muslims accused of terrorism and cow slaughter topped the set of people vulnerable to extrajudicial killing by government agents.
India worse than average on ‘Empowerment’ compared to South Asian countries
India also scored an overall score of 4.0 out of 10 in the category of ‘Empowerment’, which was termed as ‘worse than average’ in comparison with other south asian countries as it scored dismally low with the score of 3.6 and 3.9 in the categories of right to opinion and expression and religion and belief respectively.
People from particular castes, work or descent, people with particular religious beliefs or practices, indigenous people, human rights advocates and journalists were identified as being most vulnerable to getting their empowerment rights violated. Additionally, the human rights experts identified People from Dalit communities, Adivasi communities, Muslim- activists, young people, professors, journalists and women, Christian Activists, RTI activists and investigative journalists, and students with Marxist or socialist political beliefs as being most likely to face restrictions on their right to opinion and expression by government agents. The experts also placed religious minorities like the Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and Dalit Hindus as the set of people most vulnerable to facing restrictions pertaining to their freedom of religion and belief.
The report also mentions the ‘Instances of violations’ against people in other countries with foreign academics possessing actual invitations being denied entry to the country especially those who were vocal in their stance of criticising. It also mentions the Indian government refusing certification of release to the film ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’, owing to the plausible damage such a release could have on the India-Israel diplomatic relations.
72 percent of the survey respondents agreed that Muslims or Christians were most vulnerable to getting their empowerment rights violated.
In a Press release pertaining to India’s performance in the Human Rights Tracker, the HRMI’s Co-Executive director Thalia Kehoe Rowden acknowledged that there was possibility of ‘further progress’ for India in the arena of economic and social rights, but noted that “ the trends observed in civic freedoms from the state excesses are concerning and highlight the importance of continued efforts to strengthen accountability and equal access to rights and opportunities”.