New Delhi: According to Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem), which produces the largest global dataset on democracy, India remains an “electoral autocracy”, a zone it entered in 2017.It exhibited a decline in the Liberal Democracy Index as per the latest findings of the Democracy Report 2025, ranking globally at 100 of 179 countries.On the Egalitarian Component Index, it stood far lower at 134. On the Electoral Democracy Index, it fell to 105.All indices for India, which together comprise autocratising/democratising tendencies, exhibited a decline in rank, except the Egalitarian Component and Participation Component Indices.India figures in the bottom 40-50% of all countries evaluated.India figures in the bottom 40-50% of all countries evaluated. Photo: Screenshot from V-Dem report.Autocratising Hungary is also five ranks better than India in the Liberal Democracy Index, and the Philippines is just above its rank.India’s score on the Liberal Democracy Index has declined by 0.288 points. Photo: Screenshot from V-Dem report.The data and analysis can be found in the latest Democracy Report 2025, out this month, published by the V-Dem Institute, based at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.The report “measures over 600 different attributes of democracy.” It has studied 202 countries from 1789 to 2024 and is “the largest global dataset on democracy with over 31 million data points”.Democracy declines to ‘1975 levels’In a somewhat long-term view, V-Dem finds that there is no doubt now about India’s autocratising path.“The share of the world population living in electoral democracies sharply declined in 2017, when India’s episode of autocratisation led to a descent into electoral autocracy”, it finds. From 2015 to 2018, it writes, “there was still some uncertainty about the classification of India. India declined to ‘grey zone’ electoral democracy in 2015, moved further down to ‘grey zone’ electoral autocracy in 2017 and descended to confirmed electoral autocracy by 2019, after which there is no uncertainty about India’s regime type, according to the V-Dem data.”This, the institute reckons, is significant for the world due to India’s size.“The decline in population-weighted democracy levels in South and Central Asia is equally steep and worrisome. This region harbours two billion people, and the level of democracy enjoyed by an average citizen living in this region is back to the 1975-level. The decline is largely driven by India that harbours 1.4 billion people. Yet, other populous countries are also autocratising, and some at a rapid speed such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.”It finds that “two countries are democratising in South and Central Asia, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.”India is marked out as autocratising. “By contrast, six countries (43% of countries in the region) are autocratising: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Pakistan.‘Third wave of autocratisation’India’s autocratisation from 2008, finds the report, “is also emblematic of the ‘third wave of autocratisation’, which it defines as “its slow but systematic dismantling of democratic institutions.”It terms the present Union government as the “ruling anti-pluralist, Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)”, finding that the government’s and “Prime Minister Modi’s derailing of democracy is thoroughly documented, including deteriorations in freedom of expression and independence of the media, harassments of journalists critical of the government, attacks on civil society and the opposition using laws on sedition, defamation and counter-terrorism.”It acknowledges that “elections in June 2024 was a setback for the BJP forcing it to govern in a coalition.”Consequently, “2024 is the first year since 2008 with no deteriorations on democracy levels for India but it remains an electoral autocracy since 2017.”India poor performer in top 20 components of declining democraciesGovernment effort at censoring the media tops the list of the twenty components that comprise democratic decline. In the past ten years, says the report, “among the worst offenders of freedom of the media are Afghanistan, El Salvador, India and Myanmar.”The report concludes that governments “in 41 countries increasingly more often repress civil society organisations (CSOs), compared to back in 2014. A vibrant civil society plays a key role in democratic process, by holding the government accountable to the public and stimulating public debate.” India finds mention as amongst the worst offenders in terms of the oppression of civil society. “CSOs are now increasingly under attack in countries such as Belarus, India, Peru, the Philippines and Tunisia.Freedom of academic and cultural expression is declining in 41 countries. This indicator measures the extent to which academic activities and cultural expressions are restricted and controlled by the government. Afghanistan is on top of the list in this category in terms of magnitude of decline. India is bunched with Hong Kong, Hungary, Nicaragua and Russia as “other examples of countries where academic freedom and cultural expression are increasingly harshly treated by the government.”Self-censorship among journalists when reporting on politically sensitive issues is becoming more common in 32 countries, for example, in Burundi, India and Nicaragua.Attacks on election management body autonomy is a criterion for autocratisation, and the report finds the condition as serious for autocratisers like India. It finds that “government intimidation of [the] opposition during election periods increased substantially in 21 countries, among them Bangladesh, Belarus, India, Pakistan and Serbia.”Disinformation and polarisation go hand in handPatterns among the V-Dem data at the country level provide more evidence of disinformation and polarisation going hand in hand and further ratcheting up autocratisation. The report has mapped these.India’s position is this chart plotting changes in levels of disinformation and polarisation is highlighted here in yellow. Photo: Screenshot from V-Dem report.It says that “in 31 countries, governments increasingly resort to disinformation and two-thirds – 21 out of 31 – are autocratising, such as El Salvador, Georgia, Hungary, India and Serbia (left panel, Figure 2).“Polarisation is substantially and significantly increasing in 45 countries, or a quarter of all countries in the world (right panel of Figure 2). In more than half of them (N=24), it has already reached toxic levels (approximately upper one-third on the scale).”The report finds that “most autocratising countries have toxic levels of polarisation, including Hungary, India and Peru.”In March 2021, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar dismissed international democracy rankings. An analysis here discusses how the Union government has rejected reports consistently speaking of democratic backsliding while simultaneously setting up committees to “monitor” global indices.
