Is India's Democracy Backsliding?

The question of India's democratic quality has become one of the most contested questions in global democratic analysis. International democracy indices — which measure electoral quality, civil liberties, rule of law, judicial independence, press freedom, civil society space, and minority rights — have produced consistent findings: India's democratic quality has declined significantly since 2014. V-Dem's Democracy Report 2025 classifies India as an "electoral autocracy" — a country that holds genuine elections but where civil liberties, judicial independence, and civil society freedom are sufficiently constrained to remove India from the "electoral democracy" category; the V-Dem dataset records a 20% decline in judicial autonomy indicators between 2014 and 2024. Freedom House downgraded India from "Free" to "Partly Free" in 2021 — a category it has remained in — with a score of 66/100 in 2024 against 77/100 in 2017. Reporters Sans Frontieres ranked India 161st in press freedom.

Representational image: Is India's Democracy Backsliding?

The BJP and its supporters contest these assessments vigorously. They argue that India holds regular, competitive elections with genuinely high voter turnout; that the Supreme Court has struck down multiple government initiatives (electoral bonds, Article 370 constitutional validity is under challenge, farm laws were repealed under public pressure); that Opposition leaders operate freely and contest elections; and that international democracy indices embed Western liberal assumptions that do not fit India's civilisational democracy model. The Indian government has responded to V-Dem's classification by questioning the methodology and ideological orientation of the Swedish institute.

What You Need to Know

• V-Dem Democracy Report 2025 lists India among the top-20 countries with the worst media censorship in the world 2014–2024; the same report classifies India as an "electoral autocracy" — a category that includes countries that hold elections but restrict civil liberties, media freedom, and civil society sufficiently to prevent genuinely competitive democratic accountability.
• Freedom House's 2025 India report (score: 66/100, "Partly Free"): cited concerns including ECI independence ("score declined from 4 to 3 due to deficiencies in the independence of the national election commission"), partisan enforcement of anti-corruption laws ("115 of 121 opposition leaders investigated by ED since 2014 belonged to opposition parties; 23 of 25 who later joined BJP saw cases dropped"), and press freedom decline (Adani acquisition of NDTV).
• V-Dem records a 20% decline in India's judicial autonomy indicators 2014–2024; GANHRI's Sub-Committee on Accreditation recommended downgrading India's National Human Rights Commission from "A" to "B" status (upheld 2025); Transparency International ranked India 96/180 on corruption perception (2024).
• The BJP's counter-argument: India's 2024 Lok Sabha election saw a record 642 million voters participate; the BJP lost seats relative to 2019 despite incumbency advantages; the Supreme Court struck down the Electoral Bonds Scheme against government opposition; the opposition INDIA alliance won 234 seats; these outcomes are inconsistent with a genuinely autocratic system.
• A Pew Research survey cited in Verfassungsblog found that 85% of Indians surveyed in 2023 said military rule or rule by an authoritarian leader would be "good for the country" — the highest among 24 countries surveyed; and India had among the three lowest shares of respondents believing opposition parties should operate freely. This data does not indicate that Indians want autocracy enforced against them — it may reflect confidence in the current government's legitimacy — but it also illustrates complex domestic attitudes toward democratic norms.

How It Works in Practice

1. What democratic backsliding means in practice: Democratic backsliding in India's case is not — unlike Turkey or Hungary — primarily an electoral phenomenon; elections remain genuinely competitive and voter turnout is high. The backsliding documented in indices is concentrated in: media freedom (ownership concentration, journalist arrests, self-censorship); civil society space (FCRA cancellations of NGOs, funding restrictions); judicial independence (questions about collegium appointments, executive pressure on courts in specific cases); and minority rights (documented targeting of Muslim activists, academics, and community organisations under sedition, UAPA, and hate speech laws).

2. Media landscape change: India's media landscape has undergone significant ownership concentration since 2014. Acquisition of NDTV (2022) — India's last major independent English TV network — and related acquisitions have concentrated significant media ownership in groups. Democratic Erosion (April 2026) noted that "by cracking down on free press, India's government actively limits the public's ability to form their own opinions of the current system." This does not mean all media is controlled, but the percentage of outlets willing to investigate government critically has fallen.

3. NGO and civil society restrictions: It has been alleged that the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) has been used to cancel the foreign funding licences of thousands of NGOs including prominent international organisations (Amnesty International India was forced to close in 2020; five prominent faith-based NGOs had licences cancelled in April 2024). The government argues this prevents foreign interference in Indian civil society; critics argue it eliminates domestic accountability organisations.

4. Electoral quality vs civil liberty quality: India's elections score better on democratic indices than India's civil liberties. Elections are generally considered free at the ballot box — votes are counted honestly, there is genuine uncertainty about outcomes, and opposition wins consistently occur at both state and national levels. Civil liberties between elections — press freedom, NGO freedom, academic freedom, minority rights, freedom of expression — score lower.

5. The "electoral autocracy" classification and its limits: V-Dem's "electoral autocracy" label for India places it in the same category as Turkey, Hungary, and Pakistan — countries where elections are held but democratic competition is systematically skewed. The classification reflects that V-Dem understates the genuine competitiveness of Indian elections while skewing attention to civil liberty erosion.

What People Often Misunderstand

• "Partly Free" and "Electoral Autocracy" are not synonyms for dictatorship: India's democratic classification by Freedom House and V-Dem indicates declining quality in specific dimensions, not that India is authoritarian in the manner of China or Russia; the opposition operates, elections are competitive, courts have struck down major government initiatives.
• Electoral success and democratic quality are not the same thing: A government can win elections with genuine popular support while simultaneously eroding the civil liberty framework within which future electoral competition will occur; this is the pattern that democratic backsliding scholars identify as most dangerous because it has popular legitimacy.
• International democracy indices are methodologically contested: V-Dem, Freedom House, and other indices use different methodologies, expert surveys, and indicator sets; they are useful but imperfect instruments; the BJP's methodological critique is not simply self-serving — there are genuine questions about how non-Western democratic models are assessed.
• The data on ED/CBI prosecutions cuts across multiple interpretations: The statistic that 115 of 121 ED-investigated opposition leaders since 2014 are from opposition parties could reflect selective prosecution OR could reflect higher rates of financial corruption among opposition politicians than BJP politicians; the data alone cannot determine causation.
• India's democratic quality was not perfect before 2014: Congress-era governments also had problems with press pressure, institutional appointments, and civil society restrictions; the documented change is a directional shift and acceleration, not a categorical difference between a perfect democracy and imperfect one.

What Changes Over Time

The V-Dem Democracy Report 2025 is the most recent comprehensive assessment. Freedom House's 2025 India report, published March 2025, reflects 2024 conditions. The 131st Amendment defeat in April 2026 — representing an institutional check on executive ambition through parliamentary arithmetic — and the Supreme Court's ongoing examination of ECI appointment legislation in the Jaya Thakur case represent areas where constitutional constraints on executive power remain active. Whether these represent a genuine pluralist correction or temporary friction will depend on outcomes and institutional performance over the next several years.

Sources and Further Reading

• V-Dem — Democracy Report 2025 (25 Years of Autocratization): https://www.v-dem.net/documents/60/V-dem-dr__2025_lowres.pdf
• Freedom House — India Freedom in the World 2025: https://freedomhouse.org/country/india/freedom-world/2025
• Verfassungsblog — Democracy and the ECI: 2024 in Review: https://verfassungsblog.de/democracy-and-the-election-commission-of-india/
• The India Forum — India Under Modi: Shrinking Democracy, Growing Inequalities: https://www.theindiaforum.in/politics/india-under-modi-shrinking-democracy-growing-inequalities
• Democratic Erosion — Democratic Backsliding in India: https://democratic-erosion.org/2026/04/17/democratic-backsliding-in-india-electoral-manipulation-and-the-deterioration-of-civil-liberties/

(This series is part of a long-term editorial project to explain the institutions, ideas, actors, and power structures that shape political life in India. Designed as a 25-article briefing cluster on Indian Politics, Elections & Political Power, this vertical examines how electoral democracy functions in practice — from voting systems, political parties, caste coalitions, campaign finance, and the Election Commission to ideological movements, opposition politics, coalition-building, and the exercise of political power at both national and state levels. Written in an accessible format for diplomats, investors, researchers, academics, journalists, students, policymakers, civil society organisations, and international observers, the series seeks to explain not only how India's political system is formally structured, but also how political competition, representation, and governance operate in reality. This is Vertical 5 of a larger 20-vertical knowledge architecture being developed by IndianRepublic.in under the editorial direction of Saket Suman. All articles are protected under applicable copyright laws. All Rights Reserved.)