India, A Flawed Democracy: Reality or Hypocrisy?

Coming close on the heels of an uncontrolled, un co-ordinated and questionable farmers’ agitation continuing in areas around Delhi, there have been a few developments that must have somehow embarrassed the government of the largest democracy in the world. India has been degraded to a “partially free democracy,” by the US-based Freedom House. Within days, the Sweden-based V-Dem Institute went a step further and in its latest report on global democracy, described it as an “electoral autocracy,”. The Democracy Index of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) however, came up with a more objective analysis in which it described India as a “flawed democracy.”

Some of the major reasons that have been outlined for sudden and aggressive political downgrading of India, is the supposed increased pressure on human rights group, intimidation of journalists and activists and a spate of attacks on Muslims. As expected, the Indian Foreign Minister, S Jaishankar questioned the very basis of these assumptions and described them as, ‘hypocrisy.’

It would however be interesting to note that human rights activities continue unabated in India. According to one submission made by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to the Supreme Court in 2015, there remain more than 31 lakhs of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) who are continuing with their activities in various parts of the country. This number is more than double the number of schools and much more than number of hospitals in the country. This number is indicative of the fact that the civil society activism is very much alive and kicking in the country and that NGOs are being freely allowed to operate.

There have been allegations of harassment to global human rights organisations like Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the like. The relevant CBI report to Supreme Court further clarifies that only 10 percent of the active NGOs have complied with the legally mandated requirement of submitting respective income-expenditure statements, balance sheets and receipt of foreign contribution under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), 2010. It is astonishing that when notices have been sent and appropriate legal actions have been taken against some of them, allegations of witch-hunting and victimisation are being played up against the government by some of the most cash-rich national and global NGOs in India.

In addition to, some of the bigger NGOS in India have been up in arms against some of the very important strategic projects being worked on in certain parts of India. While their clamour formally relates to the issue of environment and land acquisition from the poor, one cannot ignore the fact that there have been instances of such protests being stage-managed, foreign-funded and politically motivated. Further when one comes across the recent revelations of the involvement of Chinese security agencies in creating political, economic, scientific and strategic disruptions in countries like the US, Europe, Japan and India, one really cannot overlook such activities from the NGOs, howsoever big their names could be. And most importantly, the right to legal course remains available to one and all and if and when the government is accused of doing something that goes beyond the ambit of law, such organisations are very much empowered to approach courts. In most cases, they have not and used media to attack the government instead of substantiating their alleged facts.

Then there is a big issue being played up regarding alleged intimidation of journalists and activists. As of March, 2018 there are more than one lakh publications operating in India with a combined circulation going beyond 240 million copies. According to media reports, 47 journalists have been killed in the country during 1992-2020 while in the last six years, 21 journalists have lost their lives allegedly for their professional investigative work.

 The recent ‘Getting Away With Murders” report of Thakur Foundation that has been widely used to paint the current government as dictatorial, authoritarian,’ has acknowledged that out of these killings, only one has been traced to the involvement of assailants having links with the ruling party while most have been attributed to criminals, mafia, terrorists, communists and personal enmity.

In its analysis on World Press Freedom Index (WPFI) by Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF), India has been placed at lowly 142 in 2020. One needs to realise that while the current government has specifically been targeted on this score, under the previous government which was highly regarded by many of the global media outlets, India’s ranking on WPFI slipped from 122 in 2010 to 131 in 2012. A decline of Nine rankings within two years whereas under the current incumbent, the ranking has gone down further Nine in six years.

As for the intimidation of journalists, a closer look onto the India media scene will show that the ruling party and the Prime Minister Modi is being routinely chastised and even abused by many of the opposition politicians, journalists and intellectuals. And none of them have been put behind bar on that ground. In fact, the much disgraced Sedition Law has been used by some of the opposition-ruled states including Punjab. There have been incidents of attacks on academicians and journalists including states of West Bengal, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu (ruled by non-BJP governments) and it indicates that the malaise of intolerance to media criticism, is not limited to the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) but is prevalent across the political spectrum.

As for the RSF rankings, its portrayal of countries like Afghanistan, Kuwait, UAE, Chad, Uganda, Mozambique, Malaysia and many others with a very limited and broadly regulated media, much ahead of India, seems questionable and needs to be critically assessed.

As for the action against activists, in spite of the very militant and illegal activities committed by a section of agitators in Delhi in January, the fact that they are still being not disturbed, in spite of blocking roads/highways for months and creating illegal civil, health and sanitary issues, shows that the government in fact has been giving too much leeway to them. A year ago, the government did not take stringent action against protestors, on the passing of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) issue who violated several civil laws. In fact, wherever activists have been detained or arrested by local police authorities, including Disha, they have gone through the usual legal process and given relevant relief as per the law.

As for the alleged killing of Muslims, supposedly responsible for the ‘downgrade’ of India as a democracy, actual figures reveal that while communal violence has indeed increased 28% under current Indian government, the law and order issue as per the Indian law is a state subject and each of the constitutionally elected government of states are responsible for the safety and security of citizens. A good number of atrocities committed against Muslims as well as women have taken place in states, both ruled by BJP and non-BJP governments.

While Uttar Pradesh (UP) currently ruled by PM Modi’s party tops the list with 1488 incidents of communal violence during 2010-2020 with 321 deaths, it was ruled by other opposition politicians before 2017. And importantly, the highest number of communal deaths 943 in one single year, was reported under the Indian National Congress (INC) regime way back in 2008. As for the many reported incidents of mob lynching, many of them have occurred in tribal/rural regions on issues of suspicious child-lifting and only few of them were specially targeted against Muslims. Also, such incidents took place in states like Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Punjab and West Bengal, all ruled by non-BJP governments.

In the backdrop of such analysis, one cannot help but question the very credibility of exercises conducted by such prestigious institutes. Such exercise needs to be more objective, serious, fair and unprejudiced. Only then, the governments in whichever nations they are, will be compelled to stick to the basic principles of freedom and liberty while citizens will get a fair and equal treatment, in line with the laws of the land.

Rajesh Kumar Sinha
Rajesh Kumar Sinha
Rajesh Kumar Sinha, MA, MLISc, MPhil, PG Diploma in Journalism is a serving Librarian with the Indian Railways, INDIA. He has worked in print and web media for seven years and writes for Foreign Policy News (US), South Asia Journal (US), Indian Railways (India), OPEN Journal and Rail Journal (India).