V-Dem, an independent research institute based at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has released a report – Democracy Report 2022 Autocratization Changing Nature? – where he declared that India is among the ten most autocratic countries.
The report states that India no longer functions as a fully functioning democratic country, but functions as an electoral autocracy. With no room for independent media, civil society protests and opposition in society, India’s democratic status has slipped from the top 50% to the bottom 50%, according to the V-Dem report.
Being one of the most populous countries in the world, autocratization has increased in India since the government led by Narendra Modi came to power.
“Narendra Modi led the Bharatiya Janata Party to victory in India’s 2014 elections and most of the decline occurred following their promotion of a Hindu nationalist agenda. India’s level of liberal democracy registered at 0.34 at the end of 2020 after a steep decline from its peak at 0.57 in 2013. This represents a drop of 23 percentage points on the scale of 0 to 1 LDI (Liberal Democracy Index), making it one of the most dramatic changes among any country in the world over the past 10 years,” the report points out.
Countries that autocratize tend to be world leaders. Closed autocracies are on the rise. In 2021, the “third wave” of autocratization has grown more than in other years, the report says. The group includes major G20 countries such as India, Brazil, Turkey and the United States of America, Bangladesh, Thailand, Tanzania and the Philippines.
“Anti-pluralist parties drive autocratization in at least six of the top autocratizers: Brazil, Hungary, India, Poland, Serbia and Turkey,” the report notes.
Polarization also affects countries of all regime types, established democracies and autocratizing countries. There was also growing polarization in autocratizing countries like Brazil, India and Serbia, the report adds.
Two states with low levels of democracy are more likely to engage in armed conflict than high levels. “Anti-pluralist parties and their leaders lack commitment to the democratic process, do not respect the basic rights of minorities, encourage the demonization of political opponents and condone political violence. These ruling parties tended to be nationalist-reactionary and used government power to advance autocratic agendas,” the report said.
Electoral autocracy remains the most common type of regime and is home to 44% of the world’s population, or 3.4 billion people, the report says.
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