Social Justice: Ranking 53rd out of 167 countries globally, India slipped two places in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2020. The reason for this decline: The ‘democratic backsliding’ by authorities and ‘crackdown’ on civil liberties. The Democracy Index shows the state of democracy in 167 countries around the world. It classifies 23 countries as full democracies, 52 as flawed democracies, 35 as hybrid regimes, and 57 as authoritarian regimes. Along with other countries such as the US, Brazil, France, and Belgium, India has been classified as a ‘flawed democracy’.
India’s overall score reduced 4.2 percent, from 6.9 in 2019 to 6.61 for this year. India reached its highest ranking of 27 in 2014 when it attained a score of 7.92. The EIU report stated that the Narendra Modi-led government has “introduced a religious element to the conceptualisation of Indian citizenship, a step that many critics see as undermining the secular basis of the Indian state.”