Proposed causes of democratic backsliding include lack of public support for democracy, economic inequality and social tensions, populist or personalist politics, and external influence from great power politics. Freedom in the World 2022 finds that the annual gap between losses and gains widened in 2020, 2021 and fewer than a fifth of the world’s people now live in fully Free countries. Authoritarian actors grew bolder during 2020/21as major democracies turned inward, contributing to the 15th consecutive year of decline in global freedom, according to Freedom in the World report, the annual country-by-country assessment of political rights and civil liberties released lately by Freedom House. The report found that the share of countries designated Not Free has reached its highest level since the deterioration of democracy began in 2006, and that countries with declines in political rights and civil liberties outnumbered those with gains by the largest margin recorded during the 15-year period. The report downgraded the freedom scores of 73 countries, representing 75 percent of the global population. Those affected include not just authoritarian states like China, Belarus, Hungary and Venezuela, but also troubled democracies like the United States and India.
In one of the year’s most significant developments, India’s status changed from Free to Partly Free, meaning less than 20 percent of the world’s people now live in a Free country—the smallest proportion since 1995. Indians’ political rights and civil liberties have been eroding since Narendra Modi became prime minister in 2014. His Hindu nationalist government has presided over increased pressure on human rights organizations, minorities amidst rising intimidation of academics and journalists, and a spate of bigoted attacks—including lynchings—aimed at Muslims. The decline deepened following Modi’s reelection in 2019. The changes in India formed part of a broader shift in the international balance between democracy and authoritarianism, with authoritarians generally enjoying impunity for their abuses and seizing new opportunities to consolidate power or crush dissent.
In Belarus and Hong Kong, for example, massive prodemocracy protests met with brutal crackdowns by governments that largely disregarded international criticism. The Azerbaijani regime’s military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh indirectly threatened recent democratic gains in Armenia, while the armed conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region dashed hopes for the tentative political opening in that country since 2018. All four of these cases notably featured some degree of intervention by an autocratic neighbor: Moscow provided a backstop for the regime in Belarus, Beijing propelled the repression in Hong Kong, Turkey’s government aided its Azerbaijani counterpart, and Ethiopia’s leader called in support from Eritrea. Freedom House findings make it abundantly clear that world and United Nations have not yet stemmed the authoritarian tide,” said Sarah Repucci, vice president of research and analysis at Freedom House. The United States though considered free experienced further democratic decline during the final year of the Trump presidency. The US score in Freedom in the World has dropped by 11 points over the past decade. The changes have moved the country out of a cohort that included other leading democracies, such as France and Germany, and brought it into the company of states with weaker democratic institutions, such as Romania and Panama. Hungary and Sri Lanka passed constitutional amendments that further strengthened executive power.
Despite the many losses for freedom recorded by Freedom in the World during Covid 19 people around the globe remained committed to fighting for their rights, and democracy continued to demonstrate its remarkable resilience. Following a marred election in Malawi in mid-2019, for instance, judges withstood bribery attempts and pressure from the incumbent administration and called for new elections. Report concludes that democracy today is beleaguered but not defeated, Its adversaries have grown more powerful, making the world a more hostile environment for self-government.
Freedom in the World reports assess the level of political rights and civil liberties in a given geographical area, regardless of whether they are affected by the state, nonstate actors, or foreign powers.
India is though a multiparty democracy, the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has presided over discriminatory policies and a rise in persecution affecting the Muslim population. The constitution guarantees civil liberties including freedom of expression and freedom of religion, but harassment of journalists, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and other government critics has increased significantly under Modi. Muslims, scheduled castes (Dalits), and scheduled tribes (Adivasis) remain economically and socially marginalized. In February, the government introduced new rules that made it easier for authorities to compel social media platforms to remove unlawful content. Among other removals during the year, Twitter was ordered to take down posts that criticized the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. A media investigation found in July 2021 that Pegasus spyware had been detected on smartphones belonging to dozens of leading opposition politicians, activists, businesspeople, and journalists. The opaque financing of political parties is a serious source of concern. A system of electoral bonds, introduced in 2017, allows donor identities to be known to the State Bank of India but obscured from the public, and it has contributed to major fundraising advantages for the BJP.
The ruling BJP has disproportionately benefited from an officially sanctioned campaign-funding mechanism, and because the government has selectively used investigative bodies to target opposition parties. Large-scale political corruption scandals have repeatedly exposed bribery and other malfeasance, but a great deal of corruption is thought to go unreported and unpunished, and the authorities have been accused of selective, partisan enforcement. The public generally has some access to information about government activity, but the legal framework meant to ensure transparency has been eroded in recent years. Attacks on press freedom have escalated dramatically under the Modi government, and reporting has become significantly less ambitious in recent years. Authorities have used security, defamation, sedition, and hate speech laws, as well as contempt-of-court charges, to quiet critical voices in the media. Hindu nationalist campaigns aimed at discouraging forms of expression deemed “antinational” have exacerbated self-censorship. Online disinformation from inauthentic sources is ubiquitous in the run-up to elections. A number of Hindu nationalist organizations and some media outlets promote anti-Muslim views, a practice that the government of Prime Minister Modi has been accused of encouraging.
There was an apparent increase in attacks by Hindu extremists on India’s small Christian community in 2021, with aggressors reportedly motivated by hostility toward religious conversions and encouraged in their crimes by impunity or official complicity. Academic freedom has significantly weakened in recent years, as intimidation of professors, students, and institutions over political and religious issues has increased. Members of the student wing of the Hindu nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)—from which the ruling BJP is widely regarded to have grown—have engaged in violence on campuses across the country, including attacks on students and professors. University administrators and faculty have been investigated, disciplined, or compelled to step down owing to their perceived political views. Academics face pressure not to discuss topics deemed sensitive by the BJP government, particularly India’s relations with Pakistan and conditions in Indian Kashmir. According to one organization, Article14, the number of sedition cases brought against individuals rose by an average of 28 percent annually between 2015 and 2020.
Online “troll armies” associated with the BJP routinely harass individuals—notably Muslims—and organizations for voicing criticism of the government and for engaging in behavior that supposedly deviates from Hindu orthodoxy.
A wide variety of NGOs operate, but some, particularly those involved in the investigation of human rights abuses, continue to face threats, legal harassment, excessive police force, and occasionally lethal violence. Under certain circumstances, the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA) permits the federal government to deny NGOs access to foreign funding, and authorities have been accused of using this power selectively against perceived political opponents. In 2020, Amnesty International shuttered its operations in India after authorities froze its bank accounts for alleged foreign funding violations. The FCRA licenses of more than 20,600 groups have been canceled in the past 10 years. Nearly 6,000 licenses were canceled in 2021 alone, including that of Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa.
The judiciary is formally independent of the political branches of government. Judges, particularly at the Supreme Court level, have traditionally displayed autonomy and activism in response to public-interest litigation. However, lower levels of the judiciary suffer from corruption, and the courts have shown signs of increasing politicization. Several key Supreme Court rulings in recent years have been favorable to the BJP, including the 2019 decision allowing the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of a historic mosque, and a 2020 decision to deny bail to a scholar and prominent critic of Modi who was charged with supporting a banned Maoist group. The justice system is severely backlogged and understaffed, leading to lengthy pretrial detention for suspects, many of whom remain in jail longer than the duration of any sentence they might receive if convicted.The July 2021 death in custody of Stan Swamy, an ailing 84-year-old Jesuit priest and Adivasi rights advocate who had been detained since October 2020 for supposed terrorist activity, prompted renewed calls to repeal the UAPA.Torture, abuse, and rape by law enforcement and security officials have been reported. A bill intended to prevent torture remains pending. Abuses by prison staff against people in custody, particularly those belonging to marginalized groups, are common. Figures reported to Parliament in August 2021 indicated that 5,569 people had died in judicial or police custody in the previous three years. Security forces battling regional insurgencies continue to be implicated in extrajudicial killings, rape, torture, kidnappings, and destruction of homes. While the criminal procedure code requires that the government approve the prosecution of security force members, approval is rarely granted, leading to impunity.
In the 2022 index, New Zealand is ranked most free overall, while North Korea is last. Hong Kong was ranked most free in economic liberty, while Norway was ranked most free in the social liberty category. As per the freedom house 2022 global freedom report world, democracy’s defenders sustained heavy new losses in their struggle against authoritarian foes, shifting the international balance in favor of tyranny. The impact of the long-term democratic decline has become increasingly global in nature, broad enough to be felt by those living under the cruelest dictatorships, as well as by citizens of long-standing democracies. Nearly 75 percent of the world’s population lived in a country that faced deterioration last year. The ongoing decline has given rise to claims of democracy’s inherent inferiority. Proponents of this idea include official Chinese and Russian commentators seeking to strengthen their international influence while escaping accountability for abuses, as well as antidemocratic actors within democratic states who see an opportunity to consolidate power.
The expansion of authoritarian rule, combined with the fading and inconsistent presence of major democracies on the international stage, has had tangible effects on human life and security, including the frequent resort to military force to resolve political disputes. India, the world’s most populous democracy, dropped from Free to Partly Free status in Freedom in the World 2021. Although Freedom in the World’s better-performing countries had been in retreat for several years, in 2020 it was struggling democracies and authoritarian states that accounted for more of the global decline. The enemies of freedom have pushed the false narrative that democracy is in decline because it is incapable of addressing people’s needs. In fact, democracy is in decline because its most prominent exemplars are not doing enough to protect it. `Democracy today is beleaguered but not defeated. Its enduring popularity in a more hostile world and its perseverance after a devastating year are signals of resilience that bode well for the future of freedom.
