New Delhi: India still remains an electoral autocracy with falling scores for various components, according to V-Dem Institute’s Democracy Report 2024.India also lists in the top 10 standalone autocratizers in 2023, per the report.The report further says that India dropped down to electoral autocracy in 2018 and remains in this category by the end of 2023.“Eight out of ten countries in this group were democracies before the start of autocratization. Democracy broke down in six of those eight cases – The Comoros, Hungary, India, Mauritius, Nicaragua, and Serbia. Only Greece and Poland remain democracies in 2023. This frequency of democratic breakdown matches with a recent study showing that 80% of democracies break down if they start autocratizing,” says the report titled ‘Democracy Winning and Losing at the Ballot’.“Over the years, India’s autocratization process has been well documented, including gradual but substantial deterioration of freedom of expression, compromising independence of the media, crackdowns on social media, harassment 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,” it says.“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.”
