New Delhi: The V-Dem (or Varieties of Democracy) report finds India to be in the bottom 40-50% of the 179 countries reviewed, and now situated between Niger (better) and Ivory Coast (worse). It calls out the sharp autocratisation in India from 2013, putting it at one of the top ten autocratisers in recent times, with pulling down democracy at levels as it was in 1975. India also accounts for “about half of the population living in autocratising countries.” It notes that India is no longer termed a democracy, but “dropped down to electoral autocracy in 2018” and remains there at the end of 2023.
The report observes that a “wave of autocratisation is observable globally. Autocratisation is ongoing in “42 countries, home to 2.8 billion people, or 35% of the world’s population. India, with 18% of the world’s population, accounts for about half of the population living in autocratising countries.”
The report says, “the level of liberal democracy enjoyed by the average human in the (South Asia) region is now down to levels last seen in 1975 – almost half a century ago. That was when the Vietnam War ended and when Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in India.” The population-weighted index puts India’s 1.4 billion citizens as being under autocracy.
The report cites India as “one of the worst autocratisers lately.”
Component indices which add up
The V-Dem Liberal Democracy Index (LDI) “captures both liberal and electoral aspects of democracy based on the 71 indicators included in the Liberal Component Index (LCI) and the Electoral Democracy Index (EDI).” India is at rank 104, with a score of .28 on this count and this has worsened over last time. Pakistan for context is at 119th rank and a score at .21
The V-Dem Electoral Democracy Index (EDI) “captures not only the extent to which regimes hold clean, free and fair elections, but also their actual freedom of expression, alternative sources of information and association, as well as male and female suffrage and the degree to which government policy is vested in elected political officials.” On this score, India is at rank 110 with its score having significantly worsened. The Report notes India’s worsening record here too, and speaking globally, it finds that the Clean Elections Index “appear on the top 20 list of aspects that are undermined in the largest number of autocratising countries. The indicator for free and fairness of elections deteriorated substantially and significantly in 18 countries, including the EU-member Hungary, the most populous country in the world India, and The Philippines.”
Source: V-Dem report
The Liberal Component Index, where the “liberal principle of democracy” is sought to be captures, “the importance of protecting individual and minority rights against both the tyranny of the state and the tyranny of the majority. It also captures the “horizontal” methods of accountability between more or less equally standing institutions that ensure the effective checks and balances between institutions and in particular limit the exercise of executive power.” Here, India has been ranked at 92, but again, scores have fallen.
The Egalitarian Component Index, which “measures to what extent all social groups enjoy equal capabilities to participate in the political arena” is where India finds its lowest rank, in the bottom 45 countries, at 137.
In the Participatory Component Index, which views active participation by citizens in all political processes as favourable, India ranks at 103, with significant deterioration.
In the V-Dem Deliberative Component Index (DCI) looking to capture to what extent the deliberative principle of democracy is achieved, it assesses the process by which decisions are reached in a polity. A deliberative process is one in which public reasoning, focused on the common good, motivates political decisions – as contrasted with emotional appeals, solidary attachments, parochial interests or coercion.” Here India ranks at 101, again with a deterioration in the score.
Regionally speaking: Bhutan only liberal democracy
The report finds “South and Central Asia is now the second most autocratic region in the world.” More than nine out of ten people, or 93% of the population reside in electoral autocracies like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Kazakhstan. Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are closed autocracies, accounting for 4% of the regional population.
“A mere 3% reside in electoral democracies, including countries like Armenia, and Georgia, while only one country, Bhutan, is a liberal democracy. In 2023, only Mongolia descended from an electoral democracy regime type to the democratic “grey zone”,” says the report.
Handling of dissent and digital repression
India’s “process of autocratisation”, notes the V-Dem report, begins in earnest from 2008 and characteristically proceeded in the incremental, slow-moving fashion of the “third wave”.
Over the years, “India’s autocratisation process has been well documented, including gradual but substantial deterioration of freedom of expression, compromising independence of the media, crackdowns on social media, harassments of journalists critical of the government, as well as attacks on civil society and intimidation of the opposition. The ruling anti-pluralist, Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with Prime Minister Modi at the helm has for example used laws on sedition, defamation, and counterterrorism to silence critics. The BJP government undermined the constitution’s commitment to secularism by amending the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in 2019.”
The report cites India’s shrinking environment for religious freedoms. “The Modi-led government also continues to suppress the freedom of religion rights. Intimidation of political opponents and people protesting government policies, as well as silencing of dissent in academia are now prevalent. India dropped down to electoral autocracy in 2018 and remains in this category by the end of 2023.”
In so far as media impacts on ensuring free and fair elections and dissemination of good information to enable the making of choices and a robust civil society, the report singles out El Salvador, India and “notably Mauritius” as “among the worst government offenders when it comes to increasing their efforts to censor the media.”
The report sees 14 countries seeing a significant decline over the last ten years on the indicator for internet freedoms. India finds itself in the company of “Belarus, Eswatini, Guinea, Iran, Myanmar, and Sudan” which indicate that in 2023, “these governments shut down the internet multiple times during the year.”
India has been noted as the Internet Shutdown Capital of the world for the past five years, continuously, by other indices and criticised for it. It accounted for 58% of the world’s shutdowns last year.
Social media control
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Guinea, Nicaragua, Myanmar, and Russia are all countries with scores higher than 2 for 2023, on an index to calculate the ability of governments to control social media. This score of “higher than 2,” indicates “the successful censorship of most targeted political content on social media.” Here too, India is with “Belarus, Hong Kong, Kyrgyzstan, Montenegro, Tanzania, Ukraine, and Yemen” where “social media content has been increasingly controlled.”
As recently as in the farmers protest and attempts to march to Delhi, there were reports on ordering social media to take down farmer or supporter accounts. Elon Musk’s X spoke about the orders and X’s “disagreement” with them, but compliance. A story on alleged torture and deaths of civilians in Poonch in J&K by the Army by The Caravan magazine was pulled on government orders.
‘Most populous country’ autocratising impacts global stats
India’s population makes the world’s autocratisation look very stark if evaluated per citizen living under an autocratic regime, almost a Vishwaguru of autocratisation.
A commentary on the Democracy Report notes, “From 2012 to 2022, the mean Electoral Democracy index score fell by 0.03, from 0.53 to 0.50, when weighting all countries equally. Weighted by population, however, it fell by 0.13 points, from 0.54 to 0.41. Weighed by population, but excluding India, it fell only 0.05, from 0.46 to 0.41. Hence, developments in India drive many of the most dramatic developments depicted in different Democracy Report figures.”
Source: V-Dem report
“There is a rise by 48% of those living under autocracies. Also, “44% of the world’s population, or 3.5 billion people – reside in electoral autocracies, which include populous countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia, The Philippines, and Türkiye.”
The V-Dem or Varieties of Democracy project, has been “measuring democracy” via “a multidimensional and disaggregated dataset that reflects the complexity of the concept of democracy as a system of rule that goes beyond the simple presence of elections. The V-Dem project distinguishes between five high-level principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian, and collects data to measure these principles.” The V-Dem institute is at the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.
Source : thewire