Here’s an odd article in The Brunei Times, June 3, 2008 that lists India as the country with the highest numbers of murders.The caption reads India records highest number of murders in world. Now, what would the average reader take that to mean? The highest murder rate…

But that’s not the case at all.  Here’s the piece, with my comments:

“INDIA has recorded the highest number of murders in the world, a latest study by a government agency shows, news reports said yesterday. Data put together by the National Crime Records Bureau, a department of the Federal Home Ministry, showed that the number of murders in India, was three times that of Pakistan and double of the United States.“

Lila: Anyone glancing at this would immediately come away with the impression that the murder RATE in India was higher than anywhere else. When we say there are more murders in Gary, Indiana, than elsewhere in the US, or when we assess a city for its safety, we look at murder or crime stats in relation to the population.

“There were more than 32,000 incidents of murder recorded in India over 2007-2008, whereas there were nearly 16,700 murders in the US and about 9,700 in Pakistan, the NDTV network reported.”

Lila: This is clearly misleading.  Raw numbers placed next to each other suggest implicitly that the crime levels are comparable. They are not, because the population size varies.

“However, the survey clarified that the rate per population of murder and other crimes in India was much less compared to other countries.”

Lila: The figures for the rates of murder are tucked inside the body of the piece, where the casual reader isn’t immediately going to spot them.  Most people read the headline, the first two paragraphs and the last paragraph.

So, what’s the last paragraph here?

“Indian crime rate has been increasing every year.”

Lila: Well, India’s population has been increasing every year too. But is that mentioned?

This piece was in the Brunei Times last year. A casual reader might assume from this that India had more murders and rapes than South Africa. It actually has twenty and thirty times fewer, despite much greater population, population density, and poverty. Even in absolute terms, the US has more than four times the number of rapes than India, and South Africa has almost double.The US population is over 300 million, which is nearly a quarter of the Indian population of over 1.1 billion. So this really means the rape rate per capita in the US is sixteen times that in India.

This is the second article I’ve seen recently, which seems to be trying to give a misleading impression of India as a very violent country – more violent than Pakistan. There is violence in India – from terrorism. And a lot of that is fomented by rebels, secessionists of various kinds, and yes, by jihadists – many of whom are trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan.