Instead of denying slide in democratic values, India must work to fix it https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/indian-democracy-freedom-of-speech-7509086/ September 15, 2021
S Y Quraishi writes: Trying to bully or influence rating agencies to doctor data to suit us is reprehensible.
The Freedom House Index for 2021 pushed India down four points from last year, bringing its score from 71 to 67. This demoted the country from being a “free” to a “partially free” country. V-Dem, the world-renowned think-tank from Sweden, has similarly downgraded India. It has labelled India an “electoral autocracy”, an even more devastating blow to the pride of a country that boasts of a completely independent and impartial electoral management body. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has also been scathing in its report for 2021. A comparative study by the organisation has shown India’s score dropping from an all-time high of 7.92 in 2014 to 6.61 in 2020, and its ranking has taken a nosedive from 27 to 53 out of 167 countries.
The EIU is not alone. The Reporters without Borders’ Press Freedom Report has placed India 167th out of 183 countries. Freedom House has also given India a score of 2 out of 4 in terms of press freedom, and has stated that the Indian press is “partially free”
The government instead of facing the reality and taking corrective action continues to be in a denial mode. Recently, a question asked by a member of Parliament on declining democratic indices was disallowed as it was “very sensitive in nature”.