The same survey had ranked India the fourth worst country for women’s safety in 2011 and BJP supporters had used it attack the UPA government.

New Delhi: A survey conducted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation has sent the Indian media into a flurry. The study suggested India is the most dangerous place for women in the world.

Outrage followed the report which admitted that it was based on perception and not scientific data. In a poll, the foundation asked 7 questions of 548 “experts” on how they perceive 193 countries with respect to women’s healthcare, sexual violence, non-sexual violence, discrimination, cultural practices (by Western standards) and human trafficking.

The poll is said to have asked 548 “experts in women’s issues” to answer questions, often over the phone. The said experts are from funding agencies, universities, health camps, policy making, NGOs, journalism and other forms of journalism (social commentators).

Several experts in India have expressed caution against the study and called it a “superficial survey”, saying systematic studies would have been better. Politicians, on the other hand, especially those from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have rubbished the polls.

What many are missing out on is the fact that India was ranked the fourth worst country by the same survey in 2011. However, at the time, no one accused the survey of an agenda. In fact, BJP supporters celebrated the survey then, using it to attack the UPA government.

The latest survey again followed the same methodology. The response to it, though, has been vastly different.

After Rahul Gandhi used the report to hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday, political commentator Sunanda Vashisht rebuked him saying it’s a conspiracy.

Dear @RahulGandhi – Don’t be so eager to shame our country just because you want to score cheap twitter points with PM. Our country is bigger than your politics. Please read this rebuke to mischievous and flawed Reuters story to understand this conspiracy https://t.co/37LdaK9Efm https://t.co/v4UfEWKlYF — Sunanda Vashisht (@sunandavashisht) June 26, 2018

Vashisht questioned the validity of the report, saying it was “not an open poll that anyone could answer (even within these agencies) and these experts were presumably selected based on whether folks at Thomson Reuters knew them or had heard of them.”

Further, she commented in a blog post that “since only 548 people were asked out of a world population of more than 7 billion, which is the opinion of less than 0.000008% of the people on the planet, it is rather worthless anyway.”

However, in 2011, she had praised the same poll and asked the government to take action.

http://t.co/vc7xLsz India 4th most dangerous place in world for women. Truly shameful for a country that aspires to be a superpower. — Sunanda Vashisht (@sunandavashisht) June 15, 2011

Similarly, BJP’s national social media chief Amit Malviya too spoke out against the survey, saying it was backed by an “agenda”.

Perception of 548 anonymous individuals is being used to brand India as a country unsafe for women notwithstanding data. I can imagine that Thomson Reuters may have an agenda but what is Rahul Gandhi’s stake in belittling India? https://t.co/aGOkAYXdC6 — Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) June 26, 2018

In 2013, Malviya found the findings of the same survey shameful.

The world's most dangerous countries for women http://t.co/adOOaCSZ We seems to be in some great company ! Shame. — Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) February 9, 2013

Critics observed that the reactions of the same people, on the same survey, carried out in almost the same manner with a similar result are wildly different. The only noticeable difference is the change in government.

This chain of hypocrisy demonstrates how opinions of the powerful fluctuate depending on their stake in the government.

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