New Delhi [India], September 1 (ANI): Senior Congress chief and Rajya Sabha MP P Chidambaram on Tuesday flagged India’s 106th rank amongst 179 nations on the Electoral Democracy Index by V-Dem, which he mentioned was the bottom index rating since 1975.
‘With out remark: India ranks 106th amongst 179 nations on the Electoral Democracy Index. V-Dem’s democracy index rating for India is at its lowest since 1975,’ Chidambaram posted on X.
Congress has commonly cornered the federal government over the problem, with the Chief of Opposition within the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, claiming ‘vote chori’ on a number of events.
V-Dem gave India a rating of 0.38 for the 12 months 2025 on the Electoral Democracy Index, rating the nation 106th. On the Liberal Democracy Index, India ranked one hundred and fifth with a rating of 0.26.
V-Dem makes use of Inhabitants-Weighted Measures exhibiting how a lot democracy (statistically) the common international citizen enjoys. It makes use of nation averages to provide the identical weight to advances in small nations just like the Seychelles or Timor-Leste as in India or the US.
The institute has put India underneath the electoral autocracy class.
In South and Central Asia, the report mentioned that solely 2 per cent of individuals get pleasure from electoral democracy – in Nepal and Sri Lanka, and a negligibly small proportion resides within the three ‘gray zone’ democracies – Bhutan, Mongolia, and the Maldives. It put India underneath the electoral autocracy class alongside Kazakhstan and Pakistan, whereas classifying Afghanistan and Turkmenistan as closed autocracies.
In India, V-Dem argues for a sluggish autocratization since 2009 and claims a ‘systematic dismantling of democratic establishments.’ It highlighted deteriorations in freedom of expression and independence of the media, harassment of journalists essential of the federal government, and assaults on civil society and the opposition as the explanations behind the decline.
The V-Dem Institute is led by Affiliate Professor Steven Wilson and relies on the Division of Political Science on the College of Gothenburg in Sweden. (ANI)
