INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ON WORLD PEACE VOL. XXXV NO. 3 SEPTEMBER 2018 45 A GLOBAL NONKILLING INDEX AS A CRITICAL MEASURE OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND PROGRESS Katyayani Singh and Anoop Swarup INTRODUCTION Independently the Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Gandhi- ans, Kingians and secular humanists have developed the spiritual and philo- sophical justifications for nonkilling, nonviolence, and peace. But very little has been done on the basis of scientific data and its analysis on the subject to develop a rational approach to a nonkilling paradigm. Not much can be gleaned about internal factors and structural or societal issues that contrib- ute to violence and killings. Thus the present study is an attempt to develop a “Nonkilling Index” based on a ratio- nal and empirical study of factors that contribute to killing, be it gun culture, terrorism, or wars. This paper proposes Centre for Global Nonkilling Jagran Lakecity University Mugaliyachap, Near Ratibad Bhopal–44, Madhya Pradesh India Katyayani Singh is a Doctoral Candidate at Jagran Lakecity University in Political Science. Dr. Anoop Swarup is the Chairperson of the Centre for Global Nonkilling and Vice Chancellor of Jagran Lakecity University. He has over 38 years of distinguished service as strategy and peace activist, life scientist, futurist, and as civil servant in India, Australia, and the UN. Amongst his notable books are Aloha and Arcadia Book of Poems, Give Nonviolence a Chance, and Indian Civilization through the Millennium. He is recipient of the Hiroshima Peace Award, Japan, and the Presidential Award, Republic of India. The paper fosters a “nonkilling” world view in contrast to “nonviolence” as a path to universal peace. Nonkilling, not as a metaphor but a finite reality in infinite reverence to life, is measurable and achievable and can be targeted to measure human development and progress. The present paper is an attempt to develop an index based on critical elements, scientific rationale, and dispassionate analysis of a country’s specific characteristics such as homicide, suicide, battle related deaths, internal armed conflict deaths and also capital punishment. The data has been obtained from reliable sources that are transparent and verifiable. It is recommended by the authors that a Global Nonkilling Index (GNI) to promote positive and structured “Affirmative Nonkilling” can be an important measure for human progress and development. Author copy (c) Copyrighted material