Stable Rights and Declining Liber es

India’s democracy was never very high-quality. The formal exercise of autonomous, compe ve
elec ons with a broad range of civil liber es—while it did translate into a mass poverty-allevia on
program and the world’s largest affirma ve-ac on program—always had plenty of shortcomings. But
democracy also had a built-in autocorrect feature, which allowed incumbents to be turned out of
power. That autocorrect feature is endangered today in mostly informal ways. In terms of Freedom
House’s poli cal-rights score (encompassing the pillars of elec ons, compe on, and autonomy),
India’s average for the nine years before Modi came to power was the same as for the nine years
since 2014. Incumbent turnover remains electorally possible but improbable because the Modi
government has substan ally eroded the de facto protec on of civil liber es and execu ve
constraints—the fourth and fi h pillars of democracy. It is the drop in India’s civil-liber es ra ng that
accounts for its contemporary democra c decline.

The legal right to dissent, historically only erra cally protected in Indian courts, remains legally in
place while the prac cal possibility of vocal dissent free from overwhelming harassment has virtually
disappeared. To be sure, India’s media, while generally vibrant and free, were some mes censored
before Modi’s Bhara ya Janata Party (BJP) government came to power in 2014. But today, while the
media remain legally free to dissent, widespread harassment of independent journalism and
concentra ng ownership structures have meant that journalists and individuals prac ce a high
degree of self-censorship. Checks on execu ve power, while formally in place, are rapidly falling
away.

Radically constrained civil liber es. Since 2016, civil liber es have been curtailed, to some extent
legally and to a significant extent prac cally. CIVICUS, an interna onal organiza on that tracks global
civil liber es in 197 countries, now classifies India as “repressed” on its declining scale of open,
narrowed, obstructed, repressed, and closed. The downgrade from “obstructed,” which happened in
2019, meant that India’s civic space was, according to the organiza on’s website, one where “civil
society members who cri cise power holders risk surveillance, harassment, in mida on,
imprisonment, injury and death.” Among its neighbors, India is now in the same ra ngs category as
Pakistan and Bangladesh, and in a lower category than Nepal and Sri Lanka.

The Modi government has increasingly employed two kinds of laws to silence its cri cs—colonial-era
sedi on laws and the Unlawful Ac vi es Preven on Act (UAPA). Authori es have regularly booked
individuals under sedi on laws for dissent in the form of posters, social-media posts, slogans,
personal communica ons, and in one case, pos ng celebratory messages for a Pakistani cricket win.
Sedi on cases rose by 28 percent between 2010 and 2021. Of the sedi on cases filed against ci zens
for cri cizing the government, 96 percent were filed a er Modi came to power in 2014. One report
es mates that over the course of just one year, ten-thousand tribal ac vists in a single district were
charged with sedi on for invoking their land rights.7

The Unlawful Ac vi es Preven on Act was amended in 2019 to allow the government to designate
individuals as terrorists without a specific link to a terrorist organiza on. There is no mechanism of
judicial redress to challenge this categoriza on. The law now specifies that it can be used to target
individuals commi ng any act “likely to threaten” or “likely to strike terror in people.” Between 2015
and 2019, there was a 72 percent increase in arrests under the UAPA, with 98 percent of those
arrested remaining in jail without bail.8

The frequent invoca on of these strengthened laws is substan vely new and has significantly chilled
dissent. The state has in midated opposi on by broadly labeling cri cisms of government policy as
contrary to the na onal interest, or “an -na onal,” and by employing an army of volunteers to
iden fy problema c online dissent. BJP poli cians have popularized the term “an -na onal” in
pa erns that target individuals, causes, and organiza ons.9 Academics were first to be targeted, with
university administrators and faculty inves gated, disciplined, or compelled to step down owing to
their perceived poli cal views. But such tac cs were quickly broadened to include any high-profile
dissenters.

India’s Muslim community, comprising 14 percent of the popula on, has suffered a par cularly
marked decline in civil liber es. Acts of an -Muslim violence, including lynchings or mob killings,
have risen sharply. According to IndiaSpend, bovine-related mob-lynching deaths (involving rumors
of those handling beef, typically Muslims) have substan ally risen as a propor on of violence in India
since 2010, with 97 percent of bovine-related a acks between 2010 and 2017 occurring a er Modi
came to power in 2014. A majority of the vic ms of public killings are believed to have been Muslim.
India’s largest minority now lives in a “widespread climate of fear” according to most independent
interna onal organiza ons repor ng on such ma ers, including Human Rights Watch and the U.S.
Commission on Religious Freedom.10 With Parliament’s passage of the Ci zenship Amendment Act in
2019, discrimina on against Muslims assumed legal form, specifically excluding Muslim refugees
from a streamlined ci zenship process. Observers believe this Act, together with a planned na onal
register of ci zens, will be used in tandem to disenfranchise Muslim voters who lack the paperwork
to prove they are ci zens. India’s only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir, is experiencing a
shutdown of its civil liber es that is in every major respect similar to India’s Emergency—a fact
reflected in Freedom House’s separate categoriza on of Indian Kashmir as Not Free.

Constrained individual freedom to dissent is compounded by legal constraints on the freedom of

The government has frequently barred access to the internet, the de facto means of coordina ng
protest. India not only leads the world in government-directed internet shutdowns, with 84
government-directed shutdowns in 2022, but these blackouts are typically imposed before and
during protests to impede effec ve public coordina on, o en without clear criteria for
suspension.12 The report finds that while de jure protec ons for speech and assembly have eroded
only marginally, de facto protec ons have significantly decreased.

The government’s cri cs in civil society are frequent targets of administra ve harassment. In 2020,
the Modi government ghtened the Foreign Contribu on Regula on Act (FCRA) to choke civil society
independence, targe ng the logis cs of foreign-fund transfers, limi ng the nature of spending and
the sharing of funds between NGOs, giving the central and state governments the right to suspend
NGOs at discre on, and forbidding public servants from joining organiza ons. Government
authori es have systema cally used financial audits and tax-related raids on technical but fully legal
grounds against a wide range of civil society groups, including Amnesty Interna onal, Greenpeace,
the Centre for Policy Research, the Ford Founda on, the Lawyers Collec ve, and Oxfam.13

Over the last decade, Indian media have radically circumscribed their cri cism of government due to
outright in mida on and structural changes. Since 2014, India has fallen to 161st out of 180
countries in Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index, ranking below Afghanistan,
Belarus, Hong Kong, Libya, Pakistan, and Turkey. According to the organiza on, Indian journalists
some mes receive death threats and are frequent targets of social-media hate campaigns driven by
troll farms affiliated with the government. Major media networks do not feel free to cri cize the
Modi government. One study analyzing prime- me television debates on the channel Times Now
over three months in 2020 found not a single episode in which a debate cri cized the Modi
government in any form. A separate study of RepublicTV from 2017 through 2020 found coverage to
be “consistently biased in favour of the Modi government and its policies.”14 Modi himself has limited
his interac ons with the media, holding not a single press conference in the last nine years.

Prac ces such as selec ve licensing, the acquisi on of independent networks by Modi-affiliated
businessmen, and harassment of the few remaining independent outlets further undermine media
independence. The government must grant a license to broadcast television, for example, and will
deny licenses to cri cal domes c organiza ons. The government withheld a license from the founder
of the news website Quint, Raghav Bahl (working in partnership with Bloomberg), for so long that he
closed the company’s television division. Bahl was inves gated and charged with money laundering
in 2019.

While the sheer number of news organiza ons in India would seem to indicate a thriving media,
scru ny of the func onal ownership structure indicates otherwise. The independent Media
Ownership Monitor finds in India “a significant trend toward concentra on and ul mately control of
content and public opinion.”15 Mukesh Ambani, a businessman with close es to Modi, directly
controls media outlets followed by at least 800 million Indians. Another close Modi associate,
Gautam Adani, acquired India’s last major independent television network, NDTV, in December
2022.16 According to analysts, Adani’s acquisi on of NDTV “marks the endgame for independent
media in India, leaving the country’s biggest television news channels in the hands of billionaires who
have strong es to the Indian government.”17 While there are a handful of smaller, determined
sources of independent news le , they have faced tax raids and lawsuits for their repor ng since
2013.

The government also targets interna onal news organiza ons for their cri cism, typically portraying
cri cal foreign news reports as part of a plot to hold back India’s global ascendance. The Indian
offices of the Bri sh Broadcas ng Corpora on were raided in February 2023, just weeks a er the
news organiza on released a documentary cri cal of the Modi government. Laws used under the
Emergency were invoked just months ago to ban both the BBC documentary and any clips from
circula ng within India. As the raids occurred, BJP spokesman Gaurav Bha a called the BBC the
“most corrupt organisa on in the world.”18 When a few of the dozen Indian students I teach
organized a private screening of this documentary at Oxford University, the fear among them was
palpable. Invitees were asked to refrain from pos ng on social media and from exchanging
WhatsApp messages, since videos have documented police asking individuals to unlock their phones
during rou ne stops.19

The loss of horizontal accountability. Legisla ve scru ny of execu ve ac on has been waning in real
terms during Modi’s government. Commi ees of India’s primary parliamentary bodies serve as a key
check on the execu ve, closely examining and deba ng the merits of all bills. Commi ees scru nized
71 percent of bills in the 2009–14 parliament before Modi came to power and just 25 percent of bills
in the 2014–19 parliament under Modi’s first term. Since 2019, such scru ny has declined to 13
percent, with not a single legisla ve bill sent to a commi ee during the 2020 pandemic. Some of
India’s most important laws and poli cal decisions in recent years—the imposi on of a na onal
lockdown with four hours’ no ce, demone za on, farm laws—were passed without parliamentary
consulta on and over opposi on protest. The Modi government also introduced a ra of legal
amendments to weaken whistleblower protec on.20
The growing lack of execu ve accountability to Parliament is exacerbated by an increasingly
quiescent judiciary. The Supreme Court is the custodian of India’s cons tu on and through it, of civil
liber es. During the two decades before 2014, the independence of the Supreme Court was seen to
grow migh ly, earning it the moniker of the “most powerful apex court in the world.” 21 This has
notably changed, with the central government controversially transferring independent-minded
jus ces and minimizing norms that checked execu ve power.22 Such moves prompted the four most
senior members of India’s Supreme Court to hold an unprecedented press conference in 2018,
warning that the chief jus ce’s unusual assigning of cases could be a sign of poli cal interference.
One of those four jus ces, Jas Chelameswar, also penned an open le er to the chief jus ce,
admonishing that the “bonhomie between the Judiciary and the Government in any State sounds the
death knell to Democracy.”23 The Supreme Court’s rulings on every major poli cal issue that has
come before it—the Ayodha temple, the Aadhar biometric ID system, habeas corpus in Kashmir,
electoral bonds, the Preven on of Money Laundering Act—have gone in favor of the Modi
government. This marks a break from the past. The prac cal difference between the Supreme Court
during the Emergency and today is minimal. Some even argue that, today, an Emergency is simply
“undeclared.”24

Can Indian Democracy Be Saved?

Democracy in India, as elsewhere in the world, is not today dying through a military coup or the
drama c, coordinated mass arrests of opponents. Instead, autocrats have learned to talk
democra cally and walk autocra cally, maintaining a legal façade of democracy while harassing
opposi on and shrinking space for loyal dissent. While India’s formal ins tu ons of democracy are
also under pressure—Modi’s most prominent poli cal rivals have recently been disqualified from
running in elec ons—it is primarily the inability of the ordinary ci zen to read cri cal appraisals of
government policy, to speak and assemble freely without fear of harassment as well as the absence
of substan ve checks on execu ve power that have transi oned India into a hybrid regime.

Although India’s democra c slide is real, it is not irreversible. While hybrid regimes are o en stable,
elec ons remain real moments of accountability, so long as the ballots remain secret and elec ons
fairly monitored. Even wholly autocra c regimes with thoroughly honed policies of surveillance are
subject to moments of effec ve protest because the very structures of autocra c power also prevent
such regimes from gaining an accurate understanding of ci zens’ concerns—what democracies do
best. Recent protests against China’s zero-covid strategy, Iran’s morality police, and India’s farm laws
have all highlighted the enduring possibili es of mass dissent.

Going forward, India’s surest route to democra c revival lies in the emergence of a genuine
opposi on party with well-developed organiza onal roots. The Indian Na onal Congress was once
such a party, but its grassroots linkages disappeared in 1969 when Indira Gandhi split the party and
cut off grassroots-party infrastructure in her bid to centralize power. Congress’s success in the recent
state assembly elec ons in Karnataka, the southern state that is home to India’s Silicon Valley,
underlines the BJP’s ongoing electoral vulnerability and likely owes something to Rahul Gandhi’s
grassroots campaign, Bharat Jodo Yatra.25 On a smaller scale, the Aam Aadmi Party is a promising
poli cal force that has managed to move beyond its Delhi base. But both par es face a long ba le to
enduringly develop beyond their charisma c leaders. And as ever, power must be well organized
beyond individuals before it can be effec vely used. Set against the BJP, whose organiza onal roots

have been growing for nearly a century, this will be a tall order. But not an impossible one.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Today marks 75 years since India emerged from Bri sh rule. That freedom began with bloodshed,
the par on of Colonial India into two new na ons and mass migra on across their shared border.
Now, India has become the world's largest democracy. NPR's Lauren Frayer reports from Mumbai.

LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Seventy-five years ago, India had what its first prime minister, Jawaharlal
Nehru, famously called a tryst with des ny.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU: At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake
to light and freedom.

FRAYER: Colonial India awoke to become two free na ons - Pakistan as a homeland for Muslims
and India envisioned by Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and its other founders as a secular republic with
a Hindu majority. That religious divide sparked violence, though. More than a million people were
killed, says historian Tanika Sarkar.

TANIKA SARKAR: It's true that India got this great gi of democracy, but the way par on came
about through unimaginable violence - not inflicted by the Bri sh this me, but by Indians against
each other - that cast a very long shadow.

FRAYER: Gandhi's biographer, Ramachandra Guha, says over the decades, people said India was
too big or too diverse or too poor for democracy to last.

RAMACHANDRA GUHA: There were periodic obituaries wri en for India, you know, that India
would break up and balkanize; it would come under a military dictatorship; there would be large-
scale famine. None of that has happened.

FRAYER: Instead, India today celebrated a fes val of democracy...

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Shou ng in non-English language).

FRAYER: ...Raising the tricolor flag over Delhi's 17th century red fort while a military band played
the na onal anthem.

(SOUNDBITE OF RABINDRANATH TAGORE'S "JANA GANA MANA")

FRAYER: In a televised speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called India inherently democra c.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRIME MINISTER NARENDRA MODI: (Non-English language spoken).

FRAYER: The mother of all democracies, he said.

SARKAR: But whether it's a healthy democracy, that's another ma er altogether.

FRAYER: Sarkar, the historian, says India has fallen in global democracy indices in recent years.
Modi's Hindu na onalist government has eroded the free press, poli cized the civil service, co-
opted the judiciary and treated some 200 million Muslims, the country's largest minority, as
second-class ci zens. India does have one of the world's fastest growing economies. Life
expectancy at the me of independence was around 37. Now it's nearly double that, Sarkar notes.
SARKAR: The standards of living for the poorest have improved over the years, but not as much as
it should have been. There is mass illiteracy. Wealth is highly concentrated.

FRAYER: Modi is nevertheless one of the most popular prime ministers in Indian history. He's a
Hindu na onalist who has brought faith into poli cs in a way that many voters like. Romila Thapar
is sort of the grand dame of Indian historians. She's 90, so she remembers when India won its
freedom in 1947 and recalls how na onalism back then wasn't a bad thing.

ROMILA THAPAR: What did na onalism mean to us soon a er independence? It meant secularism,
democracy and the concept of a na on-state. Religion was not to interfere in poli cs. It has done
so.

FRAYER: Religion is back in Indian poli cs, she says. And considering what happened at par on 75
years ago, that makes some Indians nervous.

India Fails The Test To Be A Democracy Every Day

 Democracies are not only about elec ons, but also about what happens in between them.
And for India, the situa on is dire, argued Christophe Jaffrelot. The ruling BJP of prime
minister Narendra Modi is far richer than opposi on par es, media coverage favors the
prime minister, and opposi on leaders face in mida on and jailing. The Indian parliament
has lost significance as laws are o en passed without debate. Judges are blackmailed, or not
appointed at all if they refuse to be influenced, meaning the once independent judiciary now
mostly rules in favor of the government. Universi es, too, are losing their independence,
because the government puts its men in charge of them. Stricter financing laws have led to
the disappearance of two-thirds of India’s NGOs over the past seven years.

 Vidya Venkat has faith that India’s people, not its ruling party, s ll control the levers of
power. She pointed at mul ple losses of the ruling party in state-level elec ons in recent
years. These prove that the same people who vote a Hindu-majority BJP into power, are also
able to vote them out of power. Civil society is s ll able to correct the government. For
example, farmer’s protests forced Modi to repeal the controversial Farm Bills in 2021, that
would have led to the end of government guaranteed prices for crops. The effec veness of
popular protest is proof India is not an authoritarian society, but a na on where democracy is
s ll intact.

 A country where you can win elec ons with hordes of cash and control over a private army,
media, and other ins tu ons is far from a democracy, countered Debasish Roy
Chowdhury. Growing inequality is a severe threat to democracy as well, just like Modi’s
unique commitment to waging a culture war against minori es, who face state-supported
 in mida on, lynching, and bulldozing of their homes and shops. Meanwhile, ins tu ons like
the judiciary, that are to act as a check on execu ve power, are too weak to push back. If a
democracy is measured by an equal treatment of its ci zens, then India fails the test every
day.

 Indian democracy is of a type of its own and has never been comparable to the systems of
the West, Tripurdaman Singh stressed. The Indian cons tu on allows for a very powerful
execu ve and the judiciary has always had an execu ve-favoring bend. The only years since
independence during which India has had a coali on government with li le concentra on of
power, from 1989 to 2014, are an anomaly. Most freedom indexes were created in those
years, explaining why they now downgrade India’s democracy. The BJP has never sought to
bring power beyond parliament. Democra c legi macy is crucial to the party. Its ethno-
majoritarian impulses threaten liberalism, but not democracy. If Indians again vote to have
more than one party in power, you will see the concentra on of power disappear. As long as
this con nues to func on, you cannot say Indian democracy is under threat.