Hyderabad: A Sweden-based research institute on Wednesday classified India as an ‘electoral autocracy’ because of “restrictions on multiple facets of democracy” such as civil society groups and free speech.
Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute, an independent research institute founded in 2014 by political scientist Staffan Lindberg in Sweden, said that India registered a 23 per cent point drop on its 0-to-1 Liberal Democracy Index (LDI) scale, marking “one of the most dramatic shifts among all countries in the world over the past 10 years”.
The institute produces its annual report on the state of democracy around the world. India was previously ranked as an electoral democracy.
“India’s autocratization process has largely followed the typical pattern for countries in the ‘Third Wave’ over the past ten years: a gradual deterioration where freedom of the media, academia, and civil society were curtailed first and to the greatest extent,” the report said.
Calling democracy ‘broken down’ in India, the institute also noted most of the decline occurred following the Bharatiya Janata Party’s victory in 2014 and their promotion of a Hindu-nationalist agenda.
The report particularly highlights the diminishing freedom of expression in India. “India is, in this aspect, now as autocratic as is Pakistan, and worse than both its neighbors Bangladesh and Nepal,” the report notes.
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