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Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, January 22
India today fell 10 notches to settle at rank 51 on the Democracy Index 2019, a listing of the most and the least democratic nations published annually by The Economist Intelligence Unit, a news and general affairs publication. The index features 167 nations and two territories.
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It’s a matter of shame. The PM can’t make his place in history by allowing curtailment of fundamental rights, not making India an economic leader in the world but a leader for Net shutdown.
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India’s score of 6.9 on a scale of 10 is the lowest since the index was first published in 2006. The country’s corresponding scores were 7.81 in 2016 and 7.23 in 2017 and 2018. Publishers of the index said the primary cause for democratic regression in India was the “erosion of civil liberties”.
The fall has been attributed to three major recent decisions – the passage of a “discriminatory” Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 by Parliament; the persistence around a controversial National Register of Citizens; and the situation in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution. Specific references to these three have been made to explain India’s decline, which the Opposition termed as “unsurprising”.
“The passage by Parliament in December of a discriminatory CAA suggests India’s decline will continue in the 2020 Index,” publishers today said.The index considers five segments to rate nations on democratic power — electoral process and pluralism; the functioning of government; political participation; political culture and civil liberties.
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The index categorises nations as full democracies (score more than 8 in 10); flawed democracies (score between 6 and 8); hybrid regimes (score between 4 and 6) and authoritarian regimes (score less than or equal to 4 on a scale of 10).
As per the current rating, India falls in the flawed democracy segment, with the Index publishers today saying that one-third of the world was currently under authoritarian regimes. The world average score for this year is 5.4.
Speaking about India’s decline on Democracy Index today, former minister Kapil Sibal said, “If this government continues in the same vein as they have done since 2014, I assure you that by the end of the next year we will be down by another five places.”
The Congress has taken the lead in challenging the constitutional validity of the CAA in the apex court and has said that the law is “discriminatory as it grants citizenship on the basis of religion for the first time ever”.
CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury also noted that there was nothing surprising about India’s democratic regression.
Ranking
Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand and Finland rated the best
China 153 | Russia 134 | Pakistan 108 | Bangladesh 80 | Sri Lanka 69
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