India is Now an ‘Electoral Autocracy’, No Longer a Democracy: V-Dem Institute, Sweden

A Sweden-based V-Dem Institute, an independent research institute based at the University of Gothenburg has said that India is now as an ‘electoral autocracy’ and no longer an ‘electoral democracy’,

The V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) Institute, founded in 2014 by Swedish political scientist Staffan Lindberg, produces its annual report on the state of democracy around the world based on a dataset of almost 30 million data points for 202 countries and the report said,

“The world’s largest democracy turned into an electoral autocracy: India with 1.37 billion citizens,”

India was previously classified as an electoral democracy.

According to The V-Dem Institute, India has moved from the top 50% of the 180 countries analyzed by V Dem to the bottom 50%. In last year’s report, India was last among the 90 countries in the top 50%. This year, it is ranked 97th, falling into the bottom 50%.

India is among the countries leading the ‘third wave of autocratisation’, V Dem said, noting that 68% of the world’s population now lives under autocratic regimes. This year’s report, therefore, is titled ‘Autocratization Turns Viral’.

Top 10 #autocratizing states over the past decade based on @vdeminstitute's newly released Democracy Report. Six of them have lost their status as #democracy – including #India.

Democracy Report 2021: https://t.co/lVn9kOugC7
New dataset version 11: https://t.co/D7qo0co0vr pic.twitter.com/0w8LI3k1Nx
— V-Dem Institute (@vdeminstitute) March 11, 2021