Ease Of Democracy

Context: India needs to do better in Democracy rankings, where it is sliding. 

India’s falling democratic credentials

• The Freedom House Index for 2021 pushed India down four points from last year, bringing its score from 71 to 67. This demoted the country from being a “free” to a “partially free” country.
• V-Dem, the world-renowned think-tank from Sweden, downgraded and labelled India an “electoral autocracy”.
• The Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) study has shown India’s score dropping from all-time high of 7.92 in 2014 to 6.61 in 2020.
• Freedom House has given India a score of 2 out of 4 in terms of press freedom, and has stated that the Indian press is “partially free”.

Factors contributing to the downfall in democracy rankings

• Increased pressure being put on human rights organisations and civil rights groups: Recently, Amnesty International halted all activities in India.
• Journalists and activists have been intimidated and incarcerated. and minorities have been specifically targeted.
• Hate and polarisation are rampant.
• Tendency of fabricating data to present an alternative image that has beset the Indian administration.
• State inaction: The government instead of facing the reality and taking corrective action continues to be in a denial mode.
  • Recently, a question asked by a member of Parliament on declining democratic indices was disallowed as it was “very sensitive in nature”.
  • Trying to bully or influence the rating agencies as seen in controversies with EIU.

Way forward: Let NITI Aayog and all concerned organisations focus on improving our performance in all the declining indicators. our focus on “ease of doing business” which led to a phenomenal improvement in our ranking within a year is a success story to emulate.