Is India democratic country? Indian democracy’s status has turned to “partly free” or “semi-democratic”, according to a release on liberties and global political rights.
According to a report of Freedom House, civil liberties have been in decline after PM Modi came to power in India in the year 2014.
This report was named Democracy under Siege and consisted of the names of the countries being free, partly free, and not free. According to the report, the number of countries designated as “not free” was highest in 2020 after 2006.
Freedom House, a US-based, ‘non-profit organization‘ that conducts research on political freedom and human rights. It annexed that India’s “fall from the higher ranks of free nations” could have a more severe effect on the world’s democratic models.
Since 2014, it says, increased pressure on human rights organizations, threatening of journalists and activists, and a spate of muggings, especially those against Muslims, had pointed to degradation of political and civil liberties in the country.
In 2014, India’s Hindu nationalist party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had a decent general election victory. And five years later in the year 2019, Mr. Narendra Modi revived to power with an even greater majority in votes. And since then the decline in India’s position in the list of Freedom House has only “quickened“, the report added.
“Under Modi, India appears to have abandoned its potential to serve as a global democratic leader, elevating narrow Hindu nationalist interests at the expense of its founding values of inclusion and equal rights for all,” the report said.
The Freedom House report
India democratic country:
It said that the actions against those protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act, a bill that offers amnesty to non-Muslim illegal immigrants from three neighboring countries had committed to India’s decline in the ratings.
Though the Indian government argues that the law will give protection to people escaping religious oppression. Some critics say that the bill is part of the BJP party’s program to marginalize Muslims in a country with a Hindu majority.
The report also talked about the government’s response to the pandemic, saying it had raised the global decline in freedom. In the year 2020, in the month of March, India forced a sudden lockdown which devised millions of migrant workers trapped in cities across India with no work and money left to get back home. Many walked centuries of kilometers, while some died because of fatigue or in accidents along the way.
What did the report tell about other countries in the world?
The report held names of several countries, including China and the US. The report held China responsible for the spread of “global disinformation and a censorship campaign” to tackle the negative result of the country to cover up the Covid-19 outbreak. Though, the Chinese government denied the allegations.
The US also had a democratic dissolution during the last years of President Donald Trump‘s presidency, the report recorded.
So, Freedom house’ report ‘Democracy under siege’ raises the question that is India democratic country?
