India is on the verge of losing its status as a democracy due to the severely shrinking of space for the media, civil society and the opposition under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, the 2020 ‘Democracy Report’ by the Sweden-based V-Dem Institute has observed.
Set up in 2014, V-Dem is an independent research institute based at the University of Gothenburg, and has published a data-heavy worldwide democracy report each year since 2017. As the name suggests, these reports look at the status of democracies in countries around the world. The institute calls itself the world’s largest data collection project on democracy.
The 2020 report titled ‘Autocratisation Surges – Resistance Grows’, begins with figures that point to the fact that globally, the spirit of democracy is on the decline.
For the first time since 2001, autocracies are in the majority and comprise 92 countries that are home to 54% of the global population, said the report.
It says that major G20 nations and all regions of the world are now part of the “third wave of autocratisation” which is affecting major economies with sizeable populations, like India, Brazil, the US and Turkey. “India has continued on a path of steep decline, to the extent it has almost lost its status as a democracy,” the preface to the report mentions.
India, the report finds, is the largest country verging towards a system of autocracy in terms of population.
Attacks on freedom of expression and media freedom are now affecting 31 countries. Two years ago it was just 19 countries. Moreover, academic freedom has registered an average decline of 13% in autocratising (including India) countries over the last 10 years. The right to peaceful assembly and protest has declined by 14% on average in such countries.
According to the report the first step of autocratisation involve eliminating media freedom and curtailing civil society.
The report cites “…the dive in press freedom along with increasing repression of civil society in India associated with the current Hindu-nationalist regime of Prime Minister Narendra Modi” to illustrate this.
India is not on the top 10 regressing countries according and is still considered as an electoral democracy. But the report warns that the signs of deterioration are evident.
This is not the first time India’s democracy has been under scrutiny by an international watch dog. Earlier in the 2019 Democracy index released this January, India slipped to the 51st position , and was categorised under flawed democracies .
Flawed democracy is defined as countries that hold free and fair elections and where basic civil liberties are respected, but have significantly weak governance, an underdeveloped political culture and low levels of political participation. The report was prepared by the intelligence unit of The Economist Group.
