Indian Ranking Slides In Ideal Democracy Index Study

Last updated on February 16th, 2021 at 07:07 am

According to a report compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), India has slid down a few notches from its previous rating for an ideal democracy. Termed as the Democracy in Sickness and In Health, a specialized report saw India slipping to the 53rd position, two notches down from its previous rating in 2019.  

Apparently, it is the “democratic backsliding” by authorities and “crackdowns” on civil liberties that has led to a further decline in the country’s ranking. Topping the ranking are countries like Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, and Canada making up the top five.

Amongst the 167 countries rated on the scale, India, however, rates better than its neighbors. “With mounting pressure on India’s democratic norms, India’s score fell from a peak of 7.92 in 2014 to 6.61 in 2020 and its global ranking slipped from 27th (in 2014) to 53rd as a result of democratic backsliding” under the current regime, an official spokesperson from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) said.

Of the 167 countries under the scanner, the Democracy Index classifies 23 countries as full democracies, 52 as flawed democracies, 35 as hybrid regimes while the rest of the 57 as authoritarian regimes. If not authoritarian or monarchy, as some would like to call it, India has been classified as a ‘flawed democracy’ along with countries such as the US, France, Belgium, and Brazil.

A lot has been critical of the leadership style of Narendra Modi. Then, many have appreciated the kind of iron first leadership he has used to usher an era of growth, self-sustained development in industries, and grit to fight the world’s biggest ever pandemic. The EIU report spoke plainly as it alleged the Narendra Modi-led government of “introducing a religious element to the conceptualization of Indian citizenship, a step that many critics (again) do see as undermining the secular basis of the Indian state”.

Further, the report said that in India and Thailand had suffered under a “democratic backsliding by the authorities and crackdowns on civil liberties led to a further decline in their global rankings”.