New Delhi: A Sweden-based institute has said that India is no longer an ‘electoral democracy’, classifying the country as an ‘electoral autocracy’.
The V-Dem Institute, an independent research institute based at the University of Gothenburg, has published data-heavy worldwide democracy reports since 2017.
The report classifies India as an ‘electoral autocracy’ from 2019.
It said that the classification of India was ‘highly uncertain’ last year because the underlying data was not clear.
“But with more and better data this year, India is classified with a higher degree of certainty as an electoral autocracy from 2019,” it said.
V Dem says autocratisation “typically follows a similar pattern across very different contexts”.
It begins with ruling governments attacking the media and civil society, followed by polarisation of the society by “disrespecting opponents and spreading false information” and culminates in elections being undermined, it says.
The report dedicates a chapter to India, titled ‘Democracy Broken Down: India’.
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