The Downslide in quality of democracy in India

The Democracy Report 2018 report released by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute, the international democracy watchdog headquartered at the Dept of Political Science,University of Gothenburg, Sweden, makes a startling revelation ;

Autocratization is now manifesting in a number of large countries including Brazil, India, Russia, Turkey, and the United States. It affects one third of the world’s population - some 2.5 billion people. 

Exclusion due to socio-economic status has continuously become more severe since the 1970s. Intensified political exclusion now affect poorer groups in countries home to one-quarter of the world’s population, or almost 2 billion people. Despite gradual advances, inclusion remains an illusion.

Anna Lührmann, leader of Democracy Report group makes a further discomfiting observation :

 “....the aspects of democracy that make elections truly meaningful are in decline. Media autonomy, freedom of expression and alternative sources of information, and the rule of law have undergone the greatest declines among democracy metrics in recent years.” 

The report based on world’s largest data set on democracy including the assessments of more 3,000 democracy experts for 201 countries goes beyond the simple presence of elections to delve into universally accepted attributes of democracy. Working in association with Kellog Institute of international Studies, V-Dem project measures five high-level principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian. 

For India, the implications of the study are perturbing- quality of democracy is in sharp decline since 2014 under the present regime , and the debasement is disquietingly uniform across almost all the attributes that contribute to the five core principles. See the graphs below. 

A deterioration in these indices imply diminishing degrees of respectful dialogue at all levels from preference formation to final decision ; higher impact of emotional appeals ,solidarity attachments, parochial interests and coercion in decision making; lesser distribution of political power across social groups particularly in the  material functions of agenda-setting, protection under law, and influence over policy making; lower responsiveness and accountability between leaders and citizen, the bedrock of electoral democracy; reduced protection of individual and minority rights against tyranny of the state and the majority : growing exclusion of citizen in political processes ,electoral and non- electoral.

The graphs highlight major erosion in elemental attributes of democracy like Freedom of Expression, Rule of Law, Freedom of Association. The Liberal Index, steady at 0.52 -0.53 between 2010-14 ,slid down to 0.43. Among its components, the freedom of expression nosedived from 0.85 to 0.65, and so did civil society participation from 0.85 to 0.65.

Equally worrisome is the auto-censorship by media moguls that puts a protective shield over the establishment. Criticism of governance or the governing elites is deemed blasphemous and gets  self-censored. Complete laissez-faire, even propagating fake news and doctored videos, however, prevails for broadcasts/reports inimical to opposition parties. The moguls have no qualms about It. Many journos who chose to follow their journalistic conscience rather than the mogul’s bible are now on streets. M/s Prasun Bajpai ( exposing that the video chat of PM with beneficiaries of state welfare schemes in Chattisgarh was scripted ), Harish Khare (pointing flaws in Aadhar database). Bobby Ghosh (not taking down the web page Hate Tracker in HT ), Krishna Prasad (story ‘operation baby’ on RSS) , Angshukanta Chakravorty ( refusing to take down a personal tweet............

There are several other incontrovertible signposts that point to a qualitative change for the worse in our democratic polity. Not the least is a studied refusal by the ruling party to share political power with minorities at all levels of governance. Citing one more instance, thousands of NGOs engaged in protecting tribal rights, or agitating for constitutional rights of weaker sections, the dispossessed and disadvantaged, or in making them self sufficient have been forced to close shop. All of this and much more lends strong support to the findings of V-Dem 2018. With GINI coefficient ,a measure of wealth inequalities , touching 0.83 (coefficient of 1 is max inequality) India already has a big social problem on hand - ranking among the most unequal nations in the world. Therefore ,the country’s interest are  best served by making a dispassionate dissection of the report and taking necessary ameliorative measures instead of living in denial or standing on pride.

Marginalised minorities, strident trumpeting of  majoritarian ethos in socio-political life, reduced freedoms of expression and association do not conduce to a meaningfully vibrant democracy. The rallying cry of the times shouldn’t be ‘ Hindus Khatre mein’ , if anything, it should reverberate with   ‘democracy khatre mein’ .