Dalits, Adivasis, Christian pastors and Bengali Muslims among most likely to face arbitrary arrest and detention by the Indian state, new data indicates

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.

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.